§ l 48–59 Insult and a Great Climax—In this series of discourses the great climax occurs in 58: ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am’. No thoughtful Israelite could hear such a saying without thinking of the words: ‘I am who am’, Ex 3:14, spoken from the burning bush by him who called himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (ibi7592d. 15). The gentle and strong Saviour brings this climax out of an atrocious affront.
48. Those whom truth exasperates easily turn to insult. ‘Samaritan’ was as opprobrious as apostate (cf. Ecclus 50:28), and ‘thou hast a devil’ meant in this context ‘impious madman’. 49. Jesus, who had found faith in Samaria and who was later to speak the parable of the Good Samaritan, Lk 10:30ff., and to praise the grateful Samaritan, Lk 17:18, took no notice of this national term of insult. 49. The sons of the devil who treated him as demoniacally insane he answered with a simple denial, adding: ‘(Rather) I honour my Father, and you dishonour me’. 50. It belongs not to Jesus himself but to the Father to vindicate his Son’s honour, which he does by a judgement of condemnation—an allusion to the vengeance that was to fall in a.d. 70. 51. Turning doubtless once more to the group of believers he said: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, if any man keep my word, he shall not see death for ever’. He meant spiritual death, which primarily strikes the soul but also excludes the body from a glorious resurrection. § m 52 f. The Jews, with the malice inherent in their unbelief, twist the words to mean escape from corporal death, experience of which was not so much ‘seeing’ as bitterly ‘tasting’. Jesus was thus making himself greater than all the great dead, including Abraham and the Prophets. That was the utmost arrogance of self-glorification. 54. Again Jesus remits his glory to the care of the Father whom the Jews called their God. 55. In reality they did not know God. They lied in pretending they did, but on the contrary, if Jesus should say he did not know him, he would be like the Jews themselves—a liar. To know is to obey, for truth is lived in charity, Eph 4:15. § n 56. What follows is stupendous. ‘Abraham your father rejoiced (in the hope and desire) of seeing my day: he saw it and was glad’. The day is the whole time of the Incarnation rather than any single day. Abraham could only have seen it by supernatural vision, either by prophetic light in the revelation concerning his seed, Gen 12–3, or in the theophany of Gen 15:8 f., or in the theophanies which many Fathers held to be apparitions, of the Logos, Gen 18:2, or in the joy and divine consolations of the birth of Isaac, the child of promise, Gen 21:1–5. The last of these seems the most probable. That day was Abraham’s Christmas. The hypothesis of the Patriarch’s spirit seeing the actual day of Christ from Limbo may be considered less tenable. 57 f. The Jews, inverting our Lord’s words, proclaim the absurdity of a man under 50 claiming to have seen Abraham. Jesus was probably between 35 and 40 at the time. St Irenaeus thought he was near 50 (Haer. II, 22, 5f.). We need not suppose that he looked older than his age. The Jews used the round number of a half-century—hundreds and fifties being common reckonings even then, Mk 6:40. 58. The solemnity of the words: ‘Before Abraham came to exist, I am’ defies comment. 59. In the ears of the Jews it was horrible blasphemy. They wished to stone him then and there. Jesus hid (by calmly mixing in the crowd) and left the temple.
§ 798a 9:1–41 Sight is given to the Man born Blind—Much comment would only serve to blunt the fine edge of this graphic, animated and fascinating page. It is the finest description of varying attitudes and reactions in the Gospels. Closely connected with the foregoing revelation of Jesus as the Light of the World, it tells of a miracle of physical illumination, 1–7, its public confirmation, 8:12, its victorious emergence from a triple inquiry, 13–18, 19–23, 24–34, its sequel in the spiritual illumination of the healed man, 35–38, its significance as indicated by Jesus himself, 39–41. The following points are to be noted. 1. Some time probably elapsed between the attempt to stone Jesus and this miracle. 2–4. The question of the disciples (first mention since 6:68) does not suppose belief in metempsychosis but a popular unphilosophic notion of disease being a punishment of prenatal or parental sin. The providential purpose of this man’s congenital blindness was really a manifestation of Jesus through one of the works which he must work till the day of his mortality ends in the night of death. 5. As long as ever he is in the world, he must visibly be the ‘light of the world’. It is to emphasize this that he works the miracle. § b 6–7. The dust moistened with spittle may be reminiscent of the creation of Adam, or symbolic of the Word made flesh, but the washing in the pool of Siloam (SE. of Jerusalem) etymologically denoting the water sent from Gihon through the tunnel of Ezechias more clearly symbolizes the baptism by which the divine Envoy illuminates. The man went home from the pool with sight restored. 8–12. The discussion raised amongst neighbours and others who had known the blind beggar results in evidence which has the vigorous brevity of three very positive verbs: I went, I washed, I (looked and) saw. 13–17. The fine matter-of-fact positiveness of the healed man appears also in the first inquiry, for while the Pharisees dispute on the case of a Sabbath-breaking miracle-worker, he affirms his belief that the man is a Prophet. 18–23. The fear of the parents to involve themselves in a statement that could be construed as a confession that Jesus was the Messias is easily understood, for any Jews, especially poor people like these would quail before the threat of excommunication—not apparently the nezipha (or one week’s ostracism under reprimand), nor the niddui (like a Lent of public penance) but the ḥerem (a major ban which made its subject a pariah). § c 24–34. The second citation of the healed man or rather attempt to bully him into false testimony under adjuration—‘give glory to God’ meant: ‘Tell the truth’, Jos 7:19—leads to a fine duel between hypocrisy and simple truth. The native humour of the brave respondent gives his answers a caustic turn. Abuse—the arm of the defeated—becomes the resource of the Pharisees. Against their ‘we know that God spoke to Moses; but as to this man: we know not whence he is’, the man speaks a ‘we know’ of common sense justified in every particular by the concrete circumstances of the case. The Pharisees proceed to a final fury of arrogant abuse and excommunicate him for the crime of being miraculously cured on the Sabbath. 35–38. Jesus (sought and) found the outcast. Now he only saw the light of day, but, by his courageous confession that his benefactor must be from God, was also coming to the light of truth. That further spiritual illumination Jesus also gave him ‘Dost thou believe in the Son of Man?’ is the better attested reading. The man certainly believed there and then that Jesus was the Messias, and probably in the full divine sense of the term, for adoration in Jn seems to mean latria only. Certainly the synagogue that had cast him out was already the blindfolded institution which we see represented by St Paul, 2 Cor 3:15, and by medieval art. The city of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux in the valley of the Rhône claims that its first bishop St Restitutus was the man born blind. Whatever the historical verdict may be, the claim deserves to be mentioned. Provence also boasts that he succeeded St Maximin as Bishop of Aix. 39–41. The judgement of discrimination which Jesus came to exercise in the world is shown by this narrative (cf. Lk 2:34). The little ones, with no pretence to be learned or seers, come to see, and those who have ‘the key of knowledge’ become blind (cf. Mt 11:25; 23:16 ff.). When the Pharisees ask if they also are blind, Jesus answers that theirs is not the blindness which takes away responsibility.
§ 799a 10:1–11:56 The Good Shepherd.
10:1–21 The Parable of the Door and the Good Shepherd—This piece is often called an allegory. It is really not such, but a parable, which our Lord applies to himself according to two terms of comparison, namely, the Door of the sheepfold and the Shepherd of the flock. As the application itself is allegory or extended metaphor, the whole may be called a parable-allegory. We can find in it a rather complete definition of the Church charmingly conveyed through a description taken from Palestinian pastoral life. It is no wonder, then, that the fulfilment of the promise made to Simon Peter, Mt 16:18, is expressed in the same language as this parable, Jn 21:15–17. The parable is connected with the foregoing by a certain association of ideas. A sheep (the man born blind) expelled from the synagogue by the false shepherds of Israel is received by the Good Shepherd. In those who heard the parable, it also evokes that miracle of illumination, 21. Nevertheless, it is the beginning of a new series, and is connected by a common basic idea with the revelations of the Feast of Dedication, 26. It is clear that Jesus, the Light of the World, here shows himself as the Giver of life—a qualification which is sealed, some weeks after the Dedication, by the resuscitation of Lazarus at Bethany, less than two miles from the gates of Jerusalem. This event occasioned that fateful conciliar pronouncement of Joseph Caiphas, 11:50, in which Jn sees a divinely-ordained prophecy that Christ will realize his own parable of the Good Shepherd, 52.
§ b 1–6. The picture of the sheep-pen contains all the necessary elements of the instruction to be conveyed—the walled or palisaded enclosure protecting the sheep brought back from their pastures for the night, the door which is open to shepherds but not to thieves who enter in some other way, the scene of the morning, when the shepherd comes from his home or his camp to lead out his sheep to pasture, the pastoral call and its recognition by his own sheep, the familiar solicitude which shows itself in calling the sheep individually by name, the docility with which the flock, ready to fly from a stranger, throng on the heels of their true shepherd. Though the picture was evidently a ‘proverb’ from everyday life (which is St John’s word for the Hebrew māšāl, which the Synoptists call a parable or similitude) the audience did not understand its purpose. § c 7–10. Jesus therefore makes the first application and explains: ‘I am the door of the sheep’ (and of the shepherds). 8. ‘All others as many as came before me (πρὸ ἐμοῦ probably authentic) are thieves and robbers’. St Chrysostom and many commentators have thought that false Messiahs like Judas the Galilean or Theudas, Ac 5:36 f., are chiefly meant, but the verb ‘are’ in the present tense seems to refer it to those immediate false shepherds who are the scribes and Pharisees. The sheep did not hear them; cf. Mt 9:36; Mk 6:34. In the prophecies of Ezechiel, 34:1–24, God had manifested his intention of taking over the shepherding of his people from self-seeking shepherds and handing it to a Davidic Prince. 9. When Jesus declares himself the door of safety for all who enter by him he means primarily shepherds, but thereby he is also the door of the sheep who through him enter to safety and go out to wholesome pastures. 10. Whereas the thief’s intention is destructive, the purpose of Jesus is life-giving. He came that his sheep may have life and have an abundance (of it)—grace, glory, resurrection from the dead.
§ d 11–18. In the application of the idea of shepherd, the contrast is not with thieves but with hirelings, and anyone who is presumed not to have an owner’s devotedness towards his own sheep. The allegorical description of that devotedness is carried to hyperbole, in order to fit the reality in Jesus. No shepherd could reasonably make a voluntary sacrifice of his life, that his sheep might be safe, but the Good Shepherd has actually done this.
11. The single sentence ‘I am the good shepherd’ has a whole world of biblical and ecclesiastical souvenirs clustering about it (Ps 22 (23) and 79 (80); Is 40; Jer 23; Ez 34; Zach 13; Lk 15; the shepherd of Hermas, the inscription of Abercius, the famous sculptured type of the Roman catacombs). Here Jesus says at once that the excellence of ‘the (great) shepherd of the sheep’, Heb 13:20, is to be found in his self-immolation on behalf of his sheep. 12 f. The hireling, whose interest is salary, has no such devotedness. We can easily find an interpretation of the ‘wolf’, although it belongs to the literary plenitude rather than to the essence of the parable. 14 f. He repeats ‘I am the good shepherd’ ad incrementum orationis, and in order to introduce a new trait, that of intimate mutual knowledge of affection between Shepherd and sheep, and also in order to affirm that he fulfils the sublime ideal of pastoral self-devotedness by giving his life for his sheep. The reciprocal knowledge of charity between Shepherd and sheep is proportionately analogous to that between the Father and the Son. The Gk word translated ‘lay down’ (my life) may represent either the metaphor of total giving, or of depositing a price, or putting off life (like a garment). § e 16. The sheep of the Good Shepherd are not all to be found within the enclosure of Israel hitherto the only pen established by God himself—but other sheep Jesus must bring from outside, and they shall hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, and there shall be one flock (not ‘fold’, which, however, is no real distortion of the sense) and one shepherd (cf. Eph 2:13–16). [There is no doubt that ποίμνη (grex) ‘flock’ is the correct reading in 16b, though ‘Fold’ (ovile) appears in the V7593g and thenceforth universally in mediaeval Latin writers. ‘This fold’—the contrast is not between a fold of the Jews and a fold of the Gentiles, but between the fold of the Jewish Church which excluded the Gentiles, and the ‘flock’ of the Christian Church which was to include them. ‘Other sheep’—here signify simply the Gentiles. MacRory (op. cit. 7th ed) comments: ‘We have three very important declarations in this verse. (1) The faith was to be preached to the Gentiles; (2) Christ was to have but one flock, composed alike of Jews and Gentiles; (3) That one flock was to have one supreme visible head’.—Gen. Ed.] 17. Jesus returns to the idea of self-immolation. For the reason (because he is obedient unto death) the Father loves the Word Incarnate, laying down his life on the cross, in order to take it up again in the resurrection of the third day. 18. His is an entirely free oblation of his life ‘No man taketh it away from me’—if we read took (with S, B and papyrus 45) there would be reference to the attempts to stone or arrest him—‘but I lay it down of myself.’ It is as God that he says this, and adds moreover ‘I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again’. But it is as man that the Word Incarnate received a command from the Father—according to NT usage a precept not a mere intimation of good-pleasure usually called a beneplacitum.
§ f 19–21. Once again the result in the audience was disagreement. Some said these were the words of a demoniac and a madman; others said that neither those noble words nor the miracle on the man born blind could come from a demoniac. As the parable of the Good Shepherd is a Sunday Gospel (2nd after Easter) it will be useful to sum up the doctrine of this whole section very briefly. The sheep come from the Jewish and the Gentile world. Unity is maintained by pastoral authority and care, that of the one Shepherd Christ and of the shepherds that rule in his name—those that come in by the door. There is union of mind and heart between sheep and shepherd. The flock feeds on the wholesome pastures of truth, the sheep individually are consoled by the compassionate solicitude of the Shepherd and they follow him with affectionate docility. The whole flock finds life in the death of the Shepherd and his resurrection. That great sacrifice willed by the Father, freely offered by Jesus, crowned with life after three days, centres the love of the Father on the Shepherd—and, let us add, should centre the love of the sheep on their Good Shepherd. Gratitude, one of the greatest human motive powers, should grow out of the consciousness that he came that we may have life and an abundance of it.
§ g 22–39 The Great Discussion at the Dedication Festival—This festival called in Hebrew ḥǎnukkah was instituted by Judas Maccabeus, 1 Mac 4:52; 2 Mac 10:5, as an eight-day solemnity beginning on 25 Casleu (Kislev), the ninth month of the Jewish year—therefore opening approximately about the third week of December. As commemorating the renewal of worship in the temple in 165 b.c., after the profanations of Antiochus Ephiphanes, it held an important place in the festal calendar. Having presumably occupied the time between Tabernacles and Dedication in the Judaean and Transjordanian ministry which Lk 9:15–11:13 probably records in the main, Jesus came to Jerusalem for this feast. 22 f. The occasion is marked in a short historical introduction. The season (winter) is mentioned for the sake of Greek readers and to explain why Jesus walked in Solomon’s Porch, the eastern side of the temple running along the western verge of Cedron and sheltered from desert winds. St Augustine could not resist referring the words to the human atmosphere: ‘It was winter, and they were frigid’. § h 24. They gathered around him and pressed him to declare himself. Their question is really a demand that he should finish this suspense of uncertainty for them and say plainly whether he was the Christ. Hitherto Jesus had proved that he was, but had not expressly said so. 25. He had said so sufficiently, however, and they did not believe, but now as before it is to the proofs, namely the works he has been doing in the name of his Father, that he refers them. His words are going to take them higher than his Messianic title up to his dignity of Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. 26. In terms of the Good Shepherd parable he tells them the reason of their unbelief. Because of their bad dispositions they are not of his sheep—the Father does not draw them, 6:44. As St Augustine is strongly predestinationist in commenting on this verse, it should be emphasized that the Jews do not receive the grace of faith, because they are voluntarily as blind as a man who shuts his eyes and refuses to open them. That they are not ‘of his sheep’ is their own fault. 27. The description of the sheep as those who hear the Shepherd’s voice, those whom Jesus knows, those who follow him, reproduces the thought of the parable, 3 f., 14. § i 28. ‘Everlasting life’ which occurs just a dozen times in chh 3–6 recurs here, Jesus gives it to his sheep and they shall (as long as they are his sheep) never fall to destruction. No one (either with the stealth of the thief or the violence of the robber) shall snatch them from his hand. It is the power exercised by the violent that is particularly envisaged, and this notion of the Shepherd’s unconquerable power to keep his sheep from every adverse force is the point of connexion with the difficult verse that follows. 29. D7594V gives the reading of V7595g which has the support of the Greek B (Vaticanus) and the Latin Fathers. Translated literally (with the original Rheims) this form of the text says: ‘My Father, that which he hath given me, is greater than all’. Both the relative pronoun (ὅ) and the comparative adjective (μεῖζον) are neuter gender. The rival reading followed by the Greek Fathers Basil, Chrysostom, Cyril, makes both words masculine and says: ‘My Father, who gave to me is greater than all’. There is no need to refer to the mixture of the two readings in many MSS. The second reading, asserting that the Father who gives the sheep to Jesus is greater (in power) than all makes an easy sense, but for that very reason may be suspect. The grammatically neuter reading is more difficult. The thing given has been understood by St Augustine and St Thomas of the divine nature (and power) given in eternal generation by the Father to the Son; others understand the thing given as the sheep, not simply as sheep but as something given by an omnipotent giver to an omnipotent keeper, as the context demands. The words that follow will fit any of these three senses: ‘No one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father’. It is evident that the hand of Jesus is equally omnipotent, for no one can snatch the sheep out of his hand. § j 30. ‘I and the Father are one’. St Cyril who follows the easier reading of 29a crystallizes his interpretation of these few words in the two adjectives homoousios, homodynamos—consubstantial, com-potent. Similar language is used by Basil and Chrysostom. Because the Arians said that union of will was meant—unanimity or concord of the Father and Christ—the champions of orthodoxy interpreted this text repeatedly (Athanasius about 50 times). Two brief citations will suffice as a summary of patristic thought. ‘Unum ad naturam referimus, sumus ad personarum distinctionem’, Jer. ‘Quod dico, unum, audiat arianus; quod dico, sumus audiat sabellianus. Non dividat arianus unum; non deleat sabellianus sumus’, Aug7596.
§ k 31–39. The Jews understood the magnitude of the claim and again threatened stoning—bringing the stones, rather than finding them near in the Porch of Solomon. 32. Jesus does not withdraw this time (cf. 8:59), but asks them to state their motive. Of the many good works he had shown them from his Father, for which particular good work did they want to stone him? 33. They answer: ‘Not for a good work’—whatever it might be—‘but for blasphemy’. The accusation is quite formal: ‘Thou, being a man, makest thyself God’. 34. Jesus does not deny the charge, nor mitigate what he has said, but leads them to reason upward from a Scripture text, according to the favourite rabbinical process of qal waḥōmer—from the less to the greater. Ps 81(82):6 (a text of the Law in the wider sense of the term) introduces God addressing the judges of Israel in the solemn words: ‘I said: “You are gods” ’. 35. The appellation is God’s own and registered in an inviolable Scripture. 36. Therefore, a fortiori, it is not blasphemy to apply it to one of higher dignity. That one is Jesus whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world, as his anointed, holy Envoy. It is not blasphemy for him to say: ‘I am the Son of God’, this being the equivalent of what he had said above. If ‘god’ is a metaphor in Ps 81:6, it does not follow that ‘Son of God’ is a metaphor here. 37. It is a higher dignity proved by works which Jesus does as works of his Father. If his word is not sufficient—although it is—at least they should believe those works, so as to recognize and know that ‘the Father is in me, and I in the Father’. This mutual in-being is a unity of being and nature and signifies an identity such as Jesus later impressed on his Apostle Philip in the same words, 14:10. Therefore, the discourse returns to the earlier assertion of consubstantiality: ‘I and the Father are one’. 39. The Jews did not think that he had retracted, for they wished to seize him, but ‘he escaped out of their hands’.
§ l 40–42 Departure to Peraea—Jesus returned across the Jordan to the place where he gathered his first disciples—the place where the Precursor was first baptizing. Away from the hostile environment of Jerusalem, many believed in him; and the memory of John became a motive of belief. Whereas the Precursor had worked no miracles, all he had said of Jesus was true.
§ 800a 11:1–44 Lazarus called from the Tomb—This is the supreme miracle of the public life, the one which manifests ‘the glory of God’ most signally on account of its circumstances; it is also most decisive in its results, for it led the Sanhedrin to decree Jesus’s death. It invites meditation rather than annotations. The narrative divides itself thus: (a) the Saviour’s journey to Bethany, 1–16; (b) the meeting with Martha and Mary, 17–32; (c) the miracle, 33–44; (d) the reactions, 45–53; (e) the retreat of Jesus to Ephrem under virtual sentence of death, 54–56.
§ b 1–16 Bethany (the name being variously interpreted by scientific and popular etymologists as House of poverty, of affliction, of Ananias, of obedience) was situated on the eastern slope of the southern shoulder of Olivet, less than 2 miles (3,000 yards) ESE. from Jerusalem. The village where Martha and Mary lived is mentioned without name in Lk 10:38, but is here named by Jn and described as the village of Mary and Martha her sister. 2. Mary is named as the anointer with reference probably to Lk 7:37 rather than to Jn 12:3. Although the matter is likely to remain a disputed question, there is a sufficiency of indications in the Gospels to give reasonable assurance to those who, with St Gregory the Great and the Latin Liturgy identify Mary of Bethany with the sinner of Lk 7:37 and Mary Magdalene; cf. §§ 739b, 753g. The sickness of Lazarus (Grecized from Eliezer) is set at the head of the narrative. His sisters, knowing the danger to the life of Jesus in Judaea decided to inform him only at the last moment. Lazarus died while the messenger was on the way to Transjordania, i.e. to some place not far from that other Bethany, 1:28. 3. In the circumstances no request is conveyed but a simple intimation: ‘Behold, he whom thou lovest is sick’. Aug7597. says beautifully: ‘It is enough that thou know; for thou dost not love and leave it at that’. 4. In the ordinances of God’s providence the sickness was not unto death but, through the raising of Lazarus, for the glory of God, who thereby glorifies his Son, the worker of the miracle. Note especially that Christ foretells this miracle no less than four times, 4, 15, 41, 42. 6. Jesus, therefore, though he loved the family at Bethany, waited two days. 7. His subsequent ‘Let us go into Judaea again’ alarmed the disciples. § c 9–10. With the little parable of the day and the night Jesus tells them that nothing can happen till the evening of the Passion comes. 11. Then he announces the sleep of Lazarus his friend which the Evangelist renders by a Gk verb from which we get our word ‘cemetery’, to signify the ‘dormitory’ of the dead. 12–14. As the disciples take him to mean ordinary sleep (a good sign in a sick man) he then says plainly that Lazarus is dead. 15–16. Being absent he did not intervene to cure him—a subject of joy, because of the salutary effect which his greater intervention will have on the faith of his disciples. When Jesus repeats: ‘Let us go’, Thomas speaks a word of decision—the decision of a generous pessimist. 17–32. The death and burial of Lazarus took place probably within a few hours of the departure of the messenger. So four days had elapsed when Jesus came to Bethany. 19. The mourners (called Jews without the usual hostile meaning) were many, on account of the nearness of Jerusalem, and mourning was maintained with gradation of rigour for 3, 7, and 30 days—compare our Catholic 3rd, 7th and 30th day. Mary was the more celebrated of the sisters, 11:1, but Martha was the mistress of the house. 20. Hence she went to meet Jesus. The dialogue is magnificent. Note the feminine delicacy and vaguely conceived hope of Martha’s first word. § d 23–24. In answer to our Lord’s assurance: ‘Your brother shall rise again’, she makes profession of her faith in the final resurrection, a religious tenet of Judaism that had been growing in clearness since the Maccabean persecutions (cf. 2 Mac 12:43 f.). No doubt she had a latent desire of something more immediately consoling. 25–26. Jesus demanded an act of faith in himself as ‘the resurrection and the life’, in the sense of his being their cause or giver, cf. 6:39, 40, 44, 54. 27. Martha’s response was magnificent. Though she did not think clearly of the miracle that was to be, she must have felt that the words portended something unusual. 28–32. She called Mary, who came and, with more emotion, repeated Martha’s original words.
§ e 33–44. Deeply moved by sympathy (ἐμβριμᾶσθαι) Jesus asked to be led to the tomb. 35. The sentence ‘And Jesus wept’ loses some of its original force by the addition of ‘and’ to Jn’s asyndetic manner, and loses something in accuracy by use of the same verb as that which denotes the weeping or crying of Mary and the Jews. The Gk word (ἐδάκρυσεν) means that Jesus broke into silent tears. 36–37. This sign of friendship moved some, and excited criticism in others, who asked if Jesus could not have prevented his friend’s death. 39. Again giving expression to his feelings of compassion (the verb seems to suggest that Jesus felt angry with Death or the Prince of Death), he ordered the tomb to be opened. Martha only thought of the decaying body of her brother and had to be reminded that she must only have faith in him who will presently show her the glory of God. § f 41–42. As man Jesus had already made the submission of prayer to his Father and now publicly thanks him for the answer to it already granted and just about to be realized. Jesus wished to make the raising of Lazarus a clear proof of his divinity by calling God to witness to the miracle before it had been wrought. They took the stone from what seems to have been a subterranean cavern without an antechamber and closed not with a round stone running in a level groove but with a horizontal stone. 43. From this cavern Jesus calls the dead man. Jn has three Gk words for what were probably only two Aramaic words spoken by Jesus with the solemnity of a loud voice. 44. Lazarus came forth, bandaged as he was and with hands and feet and eyes impeded by the attire of the grave. In order to bring the astonishment of the bystanders to the concrete matter of fact before them, Jesus said simply: ‘Loose him and let him go’. From the 4th cent. the tomb of Lazarus was shown where stands the present village of El-‘Azariyah (from Byzantine Lazarion).
§ g 45–53 The Pharisees resolve to kill Jesus—The miracle had the usual opposite effects. Some believed; others blinded by the light denounced the matter to the enemies of Jesus among the Pharisees. A miracle was no crime, but the growing popularity of the wonderworker was a danger to the worldly hopes of Judaism. 47. The chief priests and Pharisees (scribes) gathered in council. The whole discussion centred on the influence which these undoubted miracles were gaining for Jesus. If things go on thus, all will believe in him, and that will mean the end of the temple of Jerusalem and of the Jewish nation. 49. The gruff counsel of Caiphas was interposed to cut the debate short. 50. He insisted ‘that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation perish not’. 51. In the sense of the speaker it was merely a political utterance, but God, as Jn remarks, gave the words of the Pontiff of the year (such Caiphas was from a.d. 18–37) a higher prophetic meaning. 52. Jesus was to die, in order to gather the scattered children of God into one as ‘the Israel of God’, Gal 6:16. 53. From this moment the death of the Son of God is decreed by the chief Council of the Jews. They will choose a suitable time and make show of legal forms, but the matter is decided.
§ h 54–56 Jesus retires—His hour was not to sound till the Pasch of which he was to be the Lamb. He therefore retired from Jerusalem to spend the remaining weeks away from hostile manoeuvres. The city of Ephrem to which he went is probably the present village of Eṭ-Ṭayibeh, about 12 miles NE. of Jerusalem on the edge of the wilderness of Bethaven. Early pilgrims to the Pasch were already beginning to move. There was much talk about Jesus, especially because the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that his whereabouts should be reported in view of having him arrested.
§ 801a 12:1–50 End of the Public Ministry—The last journey of Jesus from Ephrem to Jerusalem was a circuit, for we are certain that he passed through Jericho. It is probable that the events and words given by Lk between 17:12 and 19:28 belong to those few days. On this hypothesis Jesus would have touched Galilee once more (at Jenin?), then passed into Peraea, and finally made the journey to Jerusalem via Jericho from near the place where his public ministry began. Jn’s account of the days which preceded the intimate farewell of Holy Thursday groups itself in six sections which naturally arrange themselves in pairs. The supper at Bethany, 1–11, and the triumph of Palm Sunday, 12–19, are closely associated by the Evangelist with the miracle of Lazarus; the words occasioned by the petition of some Greeks form two discourses—both under the sign of the cross—namely, that of the grain of wheat, 20–26, and that connected with the Saviour’s first prayer of trepidation at the approach of his Passion, 27–36; what remains consists of two solemn summaries, one from the Evangelist, 37–43, and the other from the lips of the Divine Master himself, 44–50.
§ b 1–11 The Supper at Bethany—Mt, Mk, Jn tell of the anointing at Bethany. Jn marks the date. ‘Six days before the pasch’, probably on the Friday evening that began the Sabbath of 8th Nisan, Jesus came to Bethany. Since his return from the grave, it is Lazarus that gives prominence to Bethany. 2. The supper was on the evening of the Sabbath. Simon the (ex-) leper, probably a friend rather than the father of Lazarus, was the host, Mt 26:6, and Lazarus one of those reclining at table with Jesus; Martha was serving. It was Mary’s magnificent gesture which made that supper memorable wherever the Gospel is preached. Anointing the head of a distinguished guest with perfumed oil was quite a common courtesy, Lk 7:46, and it is this act that is given prominence on this occasion even by Mk, who emphasises the profusion of unguent involved in the woman’s act of breaking the neck of the alabaster which contained it. 3. Jn on the other hand draws attention to the anointing of the Saviour’s feet and the extraordinary act of the woman in wiping the ointment off his feet with her hair. Since towels would obviously have been available this incident becomes readily intelligible only on the assumption of the identity of this Mary with the sinner of Lk 7; and thus her act is also a recalling of the events of her conversion. Nard pistic (genuine) precious, probably the Indian product from the nardostachys Jatamansi of the Himalayas, had a penetrating aroma, and Jn (probably with conscious thought of the symbolism) notes that the whole house was filled with the odour. § c 4–8. Mt and Mk, if they do not use a plural of category, show that several disciples joined in criticism of the apparently wasteful gesture, but Jn points to Judas Iscariot as the leading and vocal objector. To say that his estimate of the price of the unguent meant so many French francs, or English pounds is mere mathematical equivalence, for 300 denarii actually represented the salary of a whole lunar year earned by an ordinary workman working six days a week. 6. ‘took the things.…’ Jn tells that the pretended solicitude of Judas for the poor was really the avarice of a thief who had been appropriating contributions to the money-box (γλωσσόκομον originally a musician’s ‘tongue-box’) which he administered. 7. Mt and Mk show that the Divine Master’s defence of Mary’s action drew attention to its character of anticipated embalmment. The words in Jn mean the same, but we must supply an ellipsis: ‘Let her alone (she did not sell it) that she might keep it against the day of my burial’. 8. The proximity of the Saviour’s death is also brought out in the words: ‘the poor you have always with you, but me you have not always’. 9. Unmixed spiritual motive is rare in human crowds. The attraction of Jesus and curiosity as regards Lazarus brought a great throng of Jews to Bethany, of whom many believed. 10. The decision of the chief priests to kill Lazarus as well was involved in the fearful logic of their purpose to destroy the influence of Jesus. But Aug7598. asks: ‘Could he who raised a dead man not raise a murdered man?’
§ d 12–19 Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem—The Johan-nine description of the triumph of Palm Sunday joins that of the Synoptists, but Jn alone mentions palm branches. 13. In the acclamations of the crowd, taken in the main from the great festal Ps 117 (118), he gives prominence to the Messianic title King of Israel; cf. 1:50. Since he supposes the synoptic narrative, he omits many details such as the presence of its mother with the colt that served as a mount for Jesus, but he joins Mt in pointing to the fulfilment of Zach 9:9, which reads ‘Rejoice exceedingly, daughter of Sion’, etc. Jn quotes the text freely from memory, and substitutes ‘Fear not’ for ‘rejoice exceedingly’. 16. It is again recorded that, as on the occasion of the purification of the temple, the fulfilment of Scriptural prophecy in the events of the day did not come home to the disciples till later, ‘when Jesus was glorified’. 17. The enthusiasm of the crowd is connected with the raising of Lazarus, of which some had been eyewitnesses, while others knew from reliable informants that Jesus ‘had done this miracle’. 19. The Pharisees who were the prime haters and deadliest enemies of the ‘King of Israel’ expressed their envy in many ways that day (cf. Mt, Lk). Jn records their sense of frustration and their admission that ‘the (whole) world is gone after him’. Characteristic of St Augustine’s tractates on Jn is the question: ‘Why are you jealous, blind crowd, because the world has gone after him, by whom the world was made?’
§ e 20–26 The Gentile Visitors—Some men, Greek in language and non-Jewish in race, had come to Jerusalem to worship the one true God whom they (like the centurion of Capharnaum and Cornelius of Caesarea) had learned to know through the influence of the synagogue. The legend of Abgar connects the origin of the Syrian Church of Edessa with these pilgrims. 21. Wishing to have a private talk with Jesus of whom everyone was speaking, they approached Philip, the Apostle from Bethsaida Julias. His name was Greek and he probably spoke Greek. 22. Philip consulted Andrew his fellow-townsman, his senior in the school of Christ, and his helper in embarrassment, 6:5–9. Together they told Jesus. 23. It seems clear enough that Jesus did not say yes. These men were moved by the triumph of Palm Sunday which was not the real triumph of Jesus. His name was to be great amongst the Gentiles in another way. That is what his answer—the parable of the grain of wheat—shows. The hour of the glorification of the Son of Man, which is now so near as to have already come, is the hour of the Passion—to be followed, of course, by the Holy Spirit. § f 24–25. Thereupon he enuntiates that immolation is the condition of spiritual fructification. The grain of wheat is an example. It has the germ of life in it, but that germ does not germinate into the production of other living grains, unless it is subjected to a process of death and burial in the earth. The interests of spiritual, supernatural life must take priority over everything. To love the lower natural life more is to lose the higher; to hate (which means to love less and subordinated) what is life in this world is the means of self-preservation unto life everlasting. This is the law of self-denial so often proclaimed by the Saviour, of which the highest act is martyrdom. 26. It is the law of all the ministers or servants of Christ to follow their Master. To be with Jesus in glory—‘where I am’ by the anticipation of proximate realization—it is necessary to follow after him in the way of the cross. Such servants the father will honour and crown.
§ g 27–36 Agony of Spirit—Jn alone relates this Agony as the Synoptists alone relate the Agony in the garden. The cross frightens us, but it also frightened Jesus, who clearly showed us that he has known every experience of human weakness (apart from sin) that would fit him to be a compassionate priest. 27. The vivid image of a cruel death brought to Jesus a tremor, freely permitted, of fear. The first Gk words of Jn’s version of the Saviour’s utterance are an echo of a verse of the Judica, Ps 42 (43):6, which is also echoed in the Tristis est anima mea of Gethsemane. The parallelism with the agony in the garden is striking: ‘My soul is troubled’—‘my soul is sorrowful unto death’; ‘what shall I say?’—‘he fell on his face praying’ …; ‘Father, save me from this hour’—‘Father … take away this chalice’; ‘but for this cause I came unto this hour. Father, glorify thy Son’—‘not my will but thine be done’. 28. The voice from heaven is, however, not like the angel of the Lord strengthening him in Gethsemane. It will be remembered that the voice of his Father was heard at his baptism and his transfiguration. On those occasions it came to accredit the Divine Messias. Now, before the Passion, the voice of God tells that the name of his Father has been glorified in the life of Jesus and shall be glorified in his death. Like the voice addressed to Saul on the road to Damascus, this voice was not understood by all the bystanders. § h 30. While they disagreed, some saying it was thunder, others an angel speaking, Jesus told them that the voice had not come to assure him but to assure them. He explains to them how God will be glorified in him. 31. The judgement which is to fall on the world is a judgement of condemnation, for κρίσις has its usual meaning in the mouth of Christ. The world is the hostile mass of men and its Prince is Satan, who is now about to be cast out of his dominion. In this sense Christ immolating himself is, as Simeon foretold, set for the ruin of many. But Christ is the Saviour. 32. Lifted up on the cross he shall draw ‘all men’ rather than ‘all things’ (V7599g but not so strongly attested by Gk MSS and Fathers) to himself. The ‘all’ is not numerical but excludes every distinction of race or people. 34. As exaltation meant crucifixion, the crowd fell into a discussion about the contradiction between the idea of a Messias reigning for ever, Ps 109 (110); Is 9; Dan 7, and a Son of Man who was to die. 35. Without entering into the discussion, Jesus renews his warning that the light is before them and the time short. 36. Jn says that after these words he hid himself, because he did not stay in Jerusalem but retired to Bethany at night.
§ i 37–43 The Reflexions of the Evangelist—In the following reflexions the tragic note of this Gospel sounds again. So many miracles encountering so much unbelief! What is to be thought of it? That ‘he came to his own and his own received him not’ is from a human point of view the great ‘scandal of Jesus’. But there is no scandal. 37. The want of success of Jesus amongst the lost sheep of the House of Israel was due to a perverse disposition foretold in the prophetic Scriptures. 38. It is from what has been called the Passion of Christ according to Isaias, 53:1 ff., that Jn takes the first oracle describing Israelite unbelief. 40. The more difficult text cited freely from Is 6:9 f. had been used by Christ himself, Mt 13:14 f., and by St Paul, Ac 28:26 f., of the same kind of incredulous obstinacy. The difficulty is in Jn saying that the Jews could not believe, because Isaias had foretold that they would not, and the text itself attributes their blindness and hardness to God blinding and hardening them. What is predicted in Scripture belongs to God’s foreknowledge which is infallible. Therefore the Scripture must be fulfilled in the obstinacy of the Jews as well as in the treason of Judas, 17:12, but clearly that does not necessitate the action of the culprits any more than visual knowledge in the eyewitness of a murder necessitates the murder. In the blinding and hardening we have the mystery of the distribution of grace and its efficaciousness or non-efficaciousness. 41. Isaias said these things because (rather than ‘when’) he saw his glory, so that the Evangelist identifies Jesus with Yahweh of the famous Isaian vision. Hence Jesus knew how his work amongst the Jews was to turn out. 42–43. Like Paul later, St John notes that the infidelity of the Jews was not absolutely universal. Many, even amongst the Sanhedrites, believed, but through fear of the Pharisees and of expulsion from the synagogue—human glory hindering zeal for the glory of God—they did not publicly profess their belief.
§ j 44–50 Recapitulation of Jesus’ teaching—In the last summary the Evangelist recapitulates from the lips of Jesus the main ideas of the various discourses. Jesus had demanded faith in himself as an Envoy of God. 46. He had repeated that he came into the world as the Light of the World. 47. He had said that he was a Saviour to save, not a Judge to condemn. 48. Nevertheless, by their altitude to his word men condemn themselves and by that same word they shall be condemned on the last day. Practically the first and the last word of this part of the Gospel. 1:4 and 12:50, is ‘life’. 49–50. Jesus came into the world with his Father’s command to execute and that command is life everlasting—its whole purpose is to give eternal life to those who receive Jesus and keep his words. ‘The things, therefore, that I speak, even as the Father said unto me, so do I speak’. ‘See’, says Chrys7600., ‘how everywhere he shows himself united with him who begot him and that there is no separation’. To see Jesus is to see the Father, to hear Jesus is to hear the words which the Father gave him to speak.
§ 802a The earthly ministry of the Christ to his own nation is finished. Through their leaders and as a people ‘the children of the kingdom’ are standing in the darkness outside, when Jesus retires with his twelve apostles to eat the Paschal supper. That he did eat a Paschal supper with them is all but certain from the synoptics, but there is nothing explicit in Jn either about such a celebration or about the institution of the Eucharist. While the Synoptists narrate the things done at the Last Supper, Jn magnificently supplements them with a narrative which is mainly a report of the Saviour’s words. The whole comprises three great sections: (1) ch 13, an historical prelude (washing of the feet, separation from Judas, and a touching preamble about the Passion, the new commandment, Peter’s denial); (2) 14–16, the great discourse divided by a gesture of movement into 14 and 15–16; (3) 17, the sacerdotal prayer for unity.
§ b 13:1–38 Events in the Supper Room.
13:1–17 Washing of the Feet—Jn has not a word to indicate or describe the place of the Last Supper, but he gives a precious date. Both here and in 18:28 he clearly indicates that the Sanhedrists were not themselves eating the Paschal supper, while Jesus was gathered with his own in the supper room (cenacle). Unless we suppose an improbable official transference of the Pasch of that year to 16 Nisan, the dates must be as follows: Jesus celebrated the Pasch on the evening which began 14 Nisan on the official calendar; he was crucified about noon 14 Nisan; the Jewish paschal supper began an hour or two after the Saviour’s burial. It is disputed whether Jesus anticipated the date of the Pasch by his own authority (Fouard, Le Camus), or adhered to a Pharisaic rather than a priestly (Sadducee) dating (Vosté, Prat), or followed a different (Galilean) observation of the moon (Lagrange, Braun). Let it suffice to say here that recent studies seem to have given very strong probability to the opinion that Jesus ate the Pasch and instituted the Holy Eucharist after the sundown that closed Thursday 13 Nisan, died on a Friday which was 14 Nisan—a combination which gives very considerable probability to April 7, a.d. 30 as the date of the Redemption. (Nevertheless April 3, a.d. 33, still has its patrons, and their arguments are not negligible; cf. § 676b.)
§ c 1. St John loves prologues. They always sound the note of solemnity. Here ‘his hour’, so often mentioned before, is defined (with an allusion to the Passover) as the hour of his passage from this world to the Father. The proofs of love which he had given to his own had been many. Now he gave his final proof of that love (unto death, says Aug7601.); or as the Gk phrase ‘to the end’ may also signify, he gave them supreme proof of his love (Chrys7602., Cyr.). 2. What follows brings a terrible shock of contrast. The supper was in progress (δείπνου γινομένου, rather than ‘when supper was done’), but the devil had sown treachery in the heart of one of the company, who is now named ‘Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon’. Jn had named Judas with similar emphasis when chronicling the day of the Eucharistic promise, Jn 6:72. 3. There is another antithetic step from the baseness of Judas, to the sublime dignity which Jesus knew was his—universal sovereignty, divine origin, approaching glorification. 4 f. And we follow yet another step of contrast as Jesus fully conscious of this greatness rises from table to preform a menial act for all his apostles, including Judas, while they reclined at table (their feet outwards). A lesson in humility is, in this context, the obvious intention of Jesus, and as such he himself explains it, 12–17. The customary ceremonial required a washing of hands, but Jesus added the washing of their feet. It is really humility doing a service of charity, this latter virtue being the one which has chief prominence in the magnificent commentary provided by the liturgical texts of Maundy Thursday. The further purpose of symbolic purification, though popularly assumed since Orig7603. and Aug7604., does not clearly result from the text. Jn notes every detail of the Saviour’s actions, as if the wonder with which he then viewed the Lord thus serving his servants, still transpired through his pen. § d 6. Jesus began with Simon Peter, for we cannot conceive the impetuous apostle holding his protest, while the Lord washed the feet of one, or two, or eleven others. 7 f. English word-order blunts the force of St Peter’s protest, as it sounds both in Greek and Latin. The contrast between ‘thou’ and ‘my’ in the apostle’s words implies loving adoration expressing itself with utmost emphasis and vehemence. The amazed tone of the refusal comes from him who had declared Jesus ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God’. Even when Jesus asks for acquiescence, adding a promise of explanation in the future, 12–16, Peter remains obstinate. ‘Never’, he said. As the refusal proceeded from love, but not according to knowledge, Jesus overcame it by the proper weapon: ‘if I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with me’. In this threat with which Jesus subdues Peter’s love, it cannot well be loss of sanctifying grace, or loss of partnership in the Eucharist or in the priesthood or the apostolate that is meant—all interpretations proposed by different commentators—but rather dissociation of mind from the humiliation of the Passion (cf. Mt 16:23). 9. The fear of any sort of separation from Jesus drives the ardent apostle to the other extreme of offering his hands and head also to be washed. 10 f. One who has taken a bath needs no subsequent partial washing, for total cleanness excludes the necessity of partial cleansing. This seems the most satisfactory interpretation, as the words ‘but’ and ‘his feet’ are absent from many of the best Gk and V7605g MSS. It is in order to show his knowledge of the treason of Judas that Jesus passes to the moral sense saying: ‘You are clean, but not all’.
§ e 12–17. Resuming full attire and his place at table, Jesus explained the lesson. The disciples called him the Master and the Lord, and such he really was. Humble service of one another (washing of feet being a type of all humble services) is what they must learn from this unique Master and Lord. The Church, while keeping the washing of feet in the liturgy of Holy Thursday, has not regarded it as a permanent sacramental, much less a sacrament. It is a generic example given by the Saviour; and the solemn sentence under double Amen emphasizes that the servant being less than his Lord and the apostle being less than his Sender must not be above doing such things. It is not the knowledge, but the practice of such an example that brings the happiness of true discipleship.
§ f 18–30 Elimination of the Traitor—It is from such happiness of true discipleship that Jesus passes to indicate the presence of a miserable apostate, without, however, revealing the person to the company. The happiness mentioned did not belong to all the twelve. 18. Knowing everything, Jesus had chosen them all as members of his apostolic college (cf. 6:71), but that one should, by his own fault, betray the confidence shown him was foreseen in the prophetic Scriptures. The text of Ps 40 (41):10 is cited according to the Hebrew. The brutal treason of Achitophel, table-companion and intimate counsellor of David, is described as the backward kick of a horse against his Master. Achitophel was the type of Judas. 19. Jesus is careful to make this known beforehand, ‘that, when it shall come to pass, you may believe that I am’—the suppressed predicate being ‘what I revealed myself to be’, namely, the Messias, the Son of God. The undetermined ‘I am’ on the lips of Jesus is particularly reminiscent of the majesty of ‘I am who am’. § g 20. This grandeur of Jesus, Messias and Son of God, supplies, it seems, the connecting link between 19 and 20, which latter verse derives the dignity of the faithful apostles from the dignity of the Messias and the dignity of the Father who sent him. It is conceivable that the thought of this divinely high apostolic dignity brought on the disturbance which Jesus freely allowed to arise in his spirit, as he turned his mind to the traitor apostle. Though he had twice touched the subject of uncleanness, 11, and treachery, 18, in the apostolic group, he had not yet spoken directly. 21. Now, however, he solemnly attests with emotion, ‘Amen, amen I say to you, one of you shall betray me’. Only one knew it was himself, but the eleven were in consternation and in doubt, each about himself (as the synoptics show) and each vaguely about everyone else. St Peter, as usual, wished to cut an intolerable situation short. Placed possibly at the right-hand curve of a horse-shoe arrangement of cushions round a more or less circular table which was probably only slightly above the level of the floor, Peter was near enough to communicate with the disciple in front of Jesus, who was reclining with his head about the level of his Master’s breast. Here the Evangelist for the first time covers his anonymity with the beautiful and distinctive title ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. With a gesture of the hand and in a whisper Peter said to John: ‘Who is it?’ The familiarity with which John leaned his head back to get the information is charmingly expressed in Gk by the adverb ‘thus’ (cf. 4:6), that is, just as a bosom friend would do. § h 26. The sign, a dipped morsel, shows that the supper was not yet finished—an indication that the Eucharist had not yet been instituted. The morsel was not the Eucharist, and was probably a cake of unleavened bread, dipped in the special sauce called charoseth. This sign, of which the whispered significance was known only to John, was a gesture of friendship towards Judas, but it finally hardened him. 27. ‘After the morsel Satan went into him’ to clench the decision of betraying Jesus. By the words: ‘that which thou dost, do quickly’ Jesus separates himself from one who had already completely gone over to the enemy. So well had the reputation of Judas been guarded that the company understood the Master’s words of a commission to the bursar regarding some festal expenses or almsgiving to the poor. 30. Judas went out immediately. ‘And it was night’. To adapt a phrase of Aug7606., night went out into the night; Judas was going to the Prince of Darkness, separating himself from the Light of the World for ever. There seems to be a growing tendency to rally to the probability (though it is only a probability) that Judas had not received the body of the Lord and was not a priest. [It would be certain if the Eucharist was instituted between the second and third cups of wine and water, as Judas seems to have gone out before the second; cf. § 720a.—Gen. Ed.]
§ 803a 31–33 The Glorification of Jesus—Separated from the traitor and thereby set on the way to his Passion the man Christ regards his glorification, soon to be accomplished on the cross, as virtually realized. 32. Since he is to glorify God by his Passion, God will glorify him; ‘in himself’ may refer to the glorified or to the glorifier. The resurrection and ascension, forming a unity with the Passion, are regarded as immediately imminent. It is after this verse that many harmonizers insert the institution of the Blessed Eucharist. If so, the term of endearment: ‘Little children’ (of which this is the only recorded instance from the lips of Jesus) represents the glow of the heart which we now venerate as the Eucharistic Heart. In any case, it introduces a touching adieu, for the Master announces at once his proximate departure and visible withdrawal from his own, in such wise that they cannot accompany him.
§ b 34–35 The New Commandment—Jesus gives the old commandment of Lev 19:18 as a new commandment. Mutual fraternal love, as promulgated by the Saviour, is new because of the entirely new standard ‘as I have loved you’. The first ‘that’ introduces the commandment; ‘as’ fixes the standard; the second ‘that’ manifests the deliberate placing of that standard—in other words, Jesus’ intention in loving us was that we should love similarly—unselfishly (Cyr.), gratuitously (Chrys7607.), efficaciously, rightly (Aquin7608.). 35. Charity is the badge of true disciples of Christ. Tertullian (Apol. 30) sets it down as a note which pagans recognized in the Christian community. 1 Jn is full of the exegesis of this commandment. We should also recall the precious information transmitted by St Jerome (in Gal.) that St John in extreme old age could preach nothing else but ‘My little children, love one another’. Aug7609. has the beautiful thought: As Christ the Saviour loved us to save us, so charity should be a thirst for the spiritual salvation of our neighbours, all of whom God wills to be saved. It is primarily amongst disciples in the Christian community, but extends to others without exception, that they also may be disciples.
§ c 36–38 Peter’s Love and Presumption—St Peter was totally absorbed in the departure of Jesus and fixed in the thought that wherever the Master went he should follow. When Jesus said ‘not now’ but later, Peter made the bold profession of love and presumption which brought from Jesus the terrible reminder, in the form of a prophecy of the Apostle’s triple denial, that fervour does not avail without the consciousness of personal weakness and a correlative dependence on divine grace. Recall the touching prayer of St Philip Neri: ‘Lord keep thy hand upon Philip, or Philip will betray thee’. The cockcrow mentioned is the second of Mk—that of the third or fourth watch—before which Peter shall have thrice denied the Master (the life, says Aug7610.) for whom he thought himself ready to die.
§ d 14:1–31 Consolation—The whole discourse, chh 14–16, constitutes a farewell address. Consolation predominates in 14, while the developments of the two succeeding chapters are more exhortatory. The said consolation comes very opportunely to allay the consternation with which the prediction of Peter’s denial must have filled the eleven. All that is said is meant to reinforce the consolatory word: ‘Let not your heart be troubled’—a phrase occurring in 14:1 and 27. The burden of the thoughts is that the departure of Jesus is not abandonment. The Apostles shall have the assurance of his being their Precursor to paradise, of his future return to take them, and of his permanent interest in them, 1–14, they shall have the assurance of his Paraclete present with them, 15–17, the assurance of Jesus’ own interior and living presence, 18–24, the guidance of his Paraclete, 25, 26, and finally the peace with which he bids them farewell as well as the joy that his triumph shall bring them, 27–31.
§ e 1–14 The Way to the Father—The movement of this first section is towards the Father in heaven, to whom Jesus is the way, and with whom he is one God. 1. The remedy for troubled hearts is faith in God and in the Christ. Whether we read a double imperative: ‘believe … believe’ (Chrys7611., Cyr., Hil.), or (with V7612g an indicative ‘you believe’ and an imperative ‘believe’, God and Jesus are on a level of equality. 2. ‘Many mansions’ mean that a multitude shall come to the bliss of the Father’s house. Diversity of merits (Aug7613.) is true theology, but not the plain meaning of ‘many mansions’ in this context. If it were otherwise—if there were only a few mansions—Jesus would have said so, because his departure was really for the purpose of preparing a place for his own. We must not conceive this preparation in a quasi-material sense of fixing places, but rather understand it of the Saviour’s work as intercessor, sender of the Holy Spirit, helper of his combatant soldiers. Thus by preparing the occupants, he prepares the place which they shall occupy. 3. His return to take them is at the hour of death for each individual (personal, Veni, Domine Jesu) and for the whole Church at the Parousia, Apoc 22:20. 4. They knew vaguely that he was going to God by the way of obedience. So he told them that they knew both the goal and the road. 5. Thomas, a man of slow, critical mind, objects that they did not even know the goal or destination. § f 6. Thereupon Jesus gives both the goal and the way their full clear meaning. The Mediator is the way (to be followed by faith and obedience), inasmuch as he is the truth showing the heavenward path, and the living force that causes movement towards the goal, which is an unending vision of truth and an unending possession of life. Coming to the Father is necessarily a supernatural filial motion realized through the Son. There is only one Son in whom we are sons, only one Mediator who is our way to the Father. On earth we are wayfarers (viatores). 7. The orientation towards the Father which Jesus gives is perfect. To know him is to know the Father in the unity of the one divine nature. To see him with the eyes of faith is to see the Father. 8. This mention of seeing the Father raised in the mind of Philip the idea of a theophany, such as was granted to Moses, Ex 33:18, to the 70 elders, Ex 24:9 ff., or to Isaias, 6:1 ff. Hence the apostle who had said to Nathanael, ‘Come and see’, now says ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us’. 9. Jesus pointed out, in a tone of gentle reproof, that even in more than two or three years Philip had not penetrated his Master’s identity with God. 10. He therefore repeats the teaching of that famous day of the dedication feast, 10:25–38, when he had said, ‘I and the Father are one’. The statement of 10:38 is here reiterated in inverse order: ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me’. Identity of nature means that the words of Jesus are the words of the Father. In-being and immanence express the ineffable union of the Father and the Son. § g 11. Jesus spoke with an authority that commanded belief; cf. Mt 7:29. His word was enough to elicit belief when he said ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me’. He is now speaking not to Philip only but to all the Apostles. 12. If they hesitated with regard to his mere word, they should believe in his divinity because of his divine works. From the mention of these works he proceeds to tell them solemnly (‘Amen, amen’) that hereafter anyone believing in him shall do the same works (works of the same kind) and even greater ones. The meaning is not precisely that Peter’s shadow was to cure the sick, whereas Jesus only cured them with a word or a touch. No apostolic miracle that we know surpassed the raising of Lazarus and many others of Jesus’ miracles; but the results to be achieved by the Apostles and the Church were to be greater, for example, the conversion of the world, the interior transformation of souls through the communication of the Holy Spirit, the admirable development of the little mustard-seed which the Saviour cast into the earth in the days of his mortality. § h 13. The power to perform such stupendous works shall not be from the Apostles themselves but from Jesus raised to glory with the Father. He makes it clear that he will do the work, even when the apostolic prayer is addressed to the Father ‘in his name’. For the Father is to be glorified in the Son. 14. Similarly when Apostles pray to himself and ask something ‘in his name’, he will do it. Jesus is, of course, not speaking of the twelve only, but of the apostolic efficacy of the prayer of the Church at all times. Petition ‘in the name’ of Jesus means not merely the use of the formula: in nomine Christi or per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, but intimate apostolic union of mind and heart and intention with the Saviour. We have explained the Rheims text, but it should be noted that in 13 the Gk MSS and the best critical text of V7614g read: ‘whatsoever you shall ask in my name’, the words ‘the Father’ being omitted. The addition, however, gives the true sense of the verse.
§ 804a 15–17 The Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth—‘Love in deed and in truth’, that is, love shown by keeping the commandments is the condition of the action of Jesus in the world. On behalf of the Church loving his petition to the Father is efficacious. The Father ‘will give another Paraclete’. This purely Gk word used by Jn four times of the Holy Spirit, 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7, and once of ‘Jesus Christ the advocate of sinners’, 1 Jn 2:1, means literally ‘one called in’, as helper, pleader, defender, patron, advocate (especially in a lawsuit). Its active meaning is the usual one. In this discourse the Gk word is either retained (Syr7615., Copt., V7616g, Aeth., Goth.) or translated as ‘Consoler’ (Syr7617.-Pal., Arm., Georg., Slav.) or as ‘advocate’ (V7618g in Ep). Consoler is quite a good rendering, if we understand it to include assistance, advice, protection, intercession, everything, in fact, which is required to sustain and strengthen spiritually. The Paraclete shall remain not a short time only with his recipients, but for ever. 17. He is the spirit of truth, communicating truth and therefore irreceivable by the world placed under the dominion of the Father of lies. The antipathy of the corrupt world and of the merely natural man to spiritual teaching is like congenital blindness. Reception of the Spirit is itself vision and knowledge of the Spirit. Such vision is possessed by the Apostles (and the apostolic Church) because of the presence of the Spirit, which presence and its interior character is expressed by the two prepositions ‘with’ and ‘in’.
§ b 18–24 Presence of Jesus and the Father—The advent of the Spirit is really the advent of the whole Trinity. Jesus in heaven is not like a departed parent leaving orphaned children. Invisible to corporal eyes (i.e. to the world) he shall be visible to the eyes of faith, which faith is a contact between the living Church and its living Saviour. The day of Jesus’ coming is Pentecost and every day in which he manifests his spiritual presence. 20. ‘In that day’ there will be the recognition of faith that the Christ is in the Father (with whom as Son he is one God), that the disciples are in him as living members, and that he is in them by infusion of the life they possess owing to their incorporation into him. 21. Again the condition of love is formally stated. Active love of the Son draws down the Father’s love and also the Son’s responsive love, which is an intimate manifestation perceived by faith and even sometimes experimentally felt. 22. Judas (more commonly called Jude, not the Iscariot) expressed his surprise. His surprise was just like the former surprise of the brethren of the Lord to whose number Jude belonged, 7:4, that Jesus should have mentioned no manifestation of himself to the world. 23. Jesus answered by continuing on the same line of thought. Practical love of Jesus calls down the Father’s love and brings a joint visitation of Father and Son, not passing but abiding. 24. The non-observance of Christ’s word is non-observance of the Father’s word. Hence such conduct excludes from the divine visitation and manifestation, which is really love meeting love.
§ c 25–26 The Paraclete as Teacher and Guide—The connexion between 25 and 26 shows that the function of the Paraclete as Teacher and Mentor will be to give full understanding of the teaching of Jesus. 26 is a Trinitarian verse, for the Father sends the Spirit in the name of Christ. The Holy Spirit is always active in the Church furthering the full development of the truth delivered by Christ.
§ d 27–31 Farewell—The conclusion shows an example of Semitic inclusion. The discourse ends as it began in words of encouragement, with a slightly enlarged repetition of one phrase: ‘Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid’. It has often been noted that Latins greeted by wishing health, Greeks by wishing joy, Semites by wishing peace. 27. The peace (a real tranquillity of order within the human soul) which Jesus wishes is a legacy and a gift, not a mere formula such as the world uses. The peace of Christ excludes both disturbance and pusillanimity. As at the beginning, the Master couples the thought of his departure with that of his coming (his constant coming). As a matter of fact, his departure, instead of being a cause of sorrow, should be a cause of unselfish joy proceeding from the love of benevolence, ‘because I go to the Father: for the Father is greater than I’. The greatness of the Father over the Son was conceived by some early Fathers as the relation of giver of the divine nature to him who received it by generation. Though theologically justifiable in the sense of priority of relationship, this conception is not exegesis. Jesus is speaking as the Word Incarnate and as one going to the Father by the glorification of his humanity. The Word as Son was equal to the Father; the Word Incarnate as man was less than the Father. § e 29. As the departure was to be by the scandal of the Passion, Jesus notes that he is telling all this to his Apostles beforehand, in order to keep their faith from succumbing to the shock of events. 30. Little time is left. The prince of the wicked world—the inspirer of Judas and Jewish hatred—is coming, but against Christ the sinless he has no power. 31. If Jesus delivers himself to the Prince of Darkness, it is to show the world that he loves his Father and carries out his Father’s command. After the signal ‘Arise, let us go hence’, he must at least have left the table and gone to another part of the house. It is difficult to suppose that he spoke chh 15–17 on the way to Gethsemani. Some suppose that we have in chh 15–16 a supplementary collection of paralipomena spoken earlier in the supper and closely connected with 13:31–35; others think that 27–31 are dislocated and should conclude ch 17.
§ f 15–16 Exhortation and Encouragement—These two words characterize what is most characteristic in this piece. It builds up the unity of the body of Christ by insistence on vital adhesion to the Saviour and on the cohesive bond of mutual charity, 15:1–17. This fellowship conceived as a living vine and a fruitful fraternity shall have to face the perpetual hostility which the world showed towards Jesus himself, 15:18–25; it shall, however, stand and bear its witness to the Saviour in the strength of the Paraclete, 15:26–16:15. The rest is an epilogue of leave-taking which assures the Apostles that they shall have a perpetual source of joy in him and an invincible confidence that his victory over the world shall be theirs,16:16–33.
§ g 15:1–8 The Vine and the Branches—This is almost a pure allegory, the parabolic element in it being very small. The metaphor of the vine and the vineyard signifying the house of Israel is frequent in the OT. It is found in a beautiful canticle, Is 5:1–7, in Jeremias’ divine pleas against Israel, Jer 2:21, in a passage of Ezechiel most closely akin on the negative side to our present allegory, Ez 15:2–8, in the Philo-Ephraimite poet of Ps 79 (80)—as also in Jacob’s prophetic image of Joseph, Gen 49:22. 1. ‘I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the door, I am the good Shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way, the truth and the life’—to these six great assertions this seventh and last ‘I am’ is now added, as the Saviour’s own image of the Church which is the extension of himself, the total Christ, the mystic body of Pauline and Catholic theology. The allegory may have some relation to the Eucharistic wine which the Apostles had drunk, but in any case ‘true vine’ is the man Christ hypostatically planted in the Godhead and realizing the fecundity and excellent fruitage of the vine-image. The cultivation of it is attributed to the Father. 2. A fruitless branch is lopped off like Judas; the fruit-bearing branch is pruned by the pruning-knife of trials, and thus relieved of noxious excrescence becomes more fruitful. § h 3. The pruning ‘clean’ of the Apostles is the result of the word Jesus has spoken to them not only that night but during his whole ministry. 4. Vital immanence—the Eucharistic word of 6:57—is what the disciples must maintain by faith and charity—really by sanctifying grace which is inseparable from the virtues of faith and charity. The branches do not give but take the sap of life from the vine; therefore there is no fruit without immanent adhesion. 5. In indicating the meaning of the metaphor ‘I am the vine, you the branches’, Jesus says that union secures abundant fructification, ‘without me you can do nothing’—a sentence which according to patristic interpretation and the authoritative declaration of the 2nd Council of Orange shows the necessity not only of habitual but of actual grace. These six words exclude every sort of Pelagianism. 6. A separated vine-branch is proverbially useless, destined only to be cast out, to wither, to burn in fire. Nothing could be stronger than St Augustine’s comment: Aut vitis aut ignis—either the vine or the fire (of gehenna). 7. Mutual union of vine and branch means also efficacious prayer, which is the indispensable means of fruitful life. 8. Fruitfulness and discipleship, which is union of mind and heart with Christ, go together, and in them the Father has received glory, the moment they exist.
§ i 9–17 Union of Charity—9. The greatness of Christ’s love for his disciples is seen in the comparison: ‘As the Father loved me’. They must make sure that his love for them continues. 10. The observance of his commandments, which is the real proof of that union of wills which is called love, will ensure the permanence of Christ’s good pleasure towards them, just as in Jesus’ own obedience the Father always acknowledged his beloved Son. 11. These words Jesus has spoken, in order that he may have the joy of the vine in its branches, and that the branches may have the full joy of abundant and precious fruit. 12. He reduces his commands to one which includes all: ‘that you love one another, as I have loved you’. 13. The standard is Jesus’ own love, and the measure is that ‘greater’ and greatest measure of generosity which will make one ready to sacrifice life itself on behalf of one’s ‘friends’, who in this context also include one’s enemies, who do not return one’s love. 14. Again the proof of friendship with him who is Lord and Master, is conformity of will in obedience—idem velle, idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est, to will the same, to nill the same, is really firm friendship’. 15. Servants receive orders but are not given reasons, friends are treated as intimates and admitted to the master’s secrets. So Christ made known to his disciples all that he heard, as man and teacher, from his Father. 16. Most striking characteristic of all, his love was totally gratuitious. He chose them, not they him. This choice is brought back once more to the allegory of the vine: ‘I have appointed you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain’. In the wonderfully bold metaphors of Ps 79 (80), the apostolic tendrils of the true vine were to propagate the growth of salvation to the sea and to the Euphrates and to the ends of the earth. Such fecundity is not the result of natural activity but of prayer drawing everything from the Father in the name of his Christ. 17. All these things that Jesus enjoins have one purpose, ‘that you love one another’.