Hence, when a certain man, as Luke relates, had said to Jesus, “Master, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” and he had answered, “Who appointed me judge or divider between you?”, knowing that the man was devoted to avarice he added: “Take heed to yourselves against all avarice.”
He added an example: “The field of a certain rich man,” he says, “brought forth abundant fruits.” From this the man began to seethe in his mind over what he ought to do with those fruits. When the thought of avarice had answered him in his mind, “I shall destroy my barns and build larger ones, and, when everything has been gathered there, I shall say to my soul: You have many goods laid up for many years; eat, rest, feast,” it was then said to him by the Lord: “Fool, this night they shall require your soul of you; whose, then, will the things you have prepared be?” And he concluded: “So it is with everyone who gathers up and is not rich toward God.”
At another time, as Matthew and the other evangelists testify, he said: “How difficultly will those who possess riches enter the kingdom of God. Amen I say to you,” that is, truly, “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” And why, except because of avarice?
For Abraham was rich in possessions of gold and silver, as were King David, Job the Gentile, as is clear in sacred Scripture, and Saint Louis, king of the Franks. Nevertheless, because they were liberal rather than avaricious and poor in spirit, they undoubtedly entered the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus therefore speaks there about an avaricious rich man who acquires unlawfully, as commonly happens, for which reason Jerome says: “Every rich man is either unjust or the heir of an unjust man”; or about a rich man who, although acquiring justly, nevertheless retains tenaciously and avariciously and does not distribute to the poor when he ought. Ambrose speaks beautifully about this in Distinction 47, canon Si is. Or he speaks about a rich man who establishes his end in riches and loves them inordinately. Leo says about this: “Just as a Catholic man ought to be entangled in no error, so he ought to be entangled in no cupidity.” This is in Distinction 47.
That saying about the camel is explained in another way according to the Commentary. There was a certain gate of Jerusalem which was called “the Needle” because of its narrowness. Hence burdened animals, especially a camel, could not pass through it unless their loads were laid aside.
He therefore means that, just as a laden camel could not pass through that narrow gate unless unloaded, but could then pass through, so the rich man, after laying aside things badly acquired or detained and an inordinate affection for them, could enter through the narrow way of the kingdom of heaven; otherwise he could not.
Or camelus means a rope used on a ship. This could not pass through the eye of an intact needle, but could do so when untwisted and reduced to individual threads. And so forth.
He rebuked pride and ambition when his disciples gloried in the fact that they cast demons out of the possessed. Citing the terrible example of Lucifer’s punishment for pride, he said: “I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven. Therefore, do not rejoice that spirits are subject to you, but that your names are written in heaven.” Luke testifies to this.
And when a thought of ambition entered them at the time of the Passion, as they disputed which of them was greater, he restrained them, declaring that the greater person in prelacy must serve the others rather than dominate them as they supposed.
A little earlier he had modestly corrected James and John, who through their mother had asked that one of them sit at his right and the other at his left in the kingdom, saying: “You do not know what you ask, because to sit at the right or the left,” that is, in a greater or lesser worthy degree of glory, “is not mine to give to you,” namely to the ambitious, “but to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father,” namely the humble. This accords with the saying: “He who humbles himself shall be exalted,” just as, conversely, “he who exalts himself,” namely through pride, “shall be humbled,” cast down as far as hell.
Reproaching the vainglorious, he said about the scribes and Pharisees: “They do all their works so that they may be seen by human beings. They love the first places at banquets, the chairs in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplace, and to be called rabbi by everyone. They broaden their phylacteries and enlarge their fringes.” Matthew relates this.
And in John, Jesus says to the Jews: “How can you believe, when you seek the glory that comes from human beings and not that which is from God?”
He also gave a precaution by which one might preserve oneself from that very vainglory, since it is a vice that enters secretly. According to Matthew, he said: “Take heed lest you perform your justice before human beings in order to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward.” He explains this particularly concerning works that belong to the genus of good things—namely fasting, almsgiving, and prayer—lest they be performed openly for the sake of human praise. He taught the same by his own example, for when he performed miracles he commanded those who received health to conceal them.
He drew people away from pleasures, saying according to Luke: “Take heed lest your hearts be weighed down by surfeiting and drunkenness.” He also drew them from lust when he said: “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning.” According to Gregory, to gird one’s loins is to restrain oneself from the lust of the flesh.
He further showed that one must abstain not only from unlawful carnal acts but also from shameful thoughts, especially as regards consent, when he said: “Whoever sees a woman in order to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” And: “From the heart proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, adulteries,” and so forth, “and they defile a human being,” namely with sin.
Just as he rebuked carnal vices in the most honorable words, or taught that they must be avoided, so also he maintained a way of life altogether lacking suspicion. For this reason, although the Jews and his rivals said many evil things about him, even falsely—such as that he was a glutton, a drinker of wine, possessed by a demon, an enchanter of demons, a violator of the Law, and a seducer—they nevertheless never dared disparage his chastity. Such was the purity of his life, which it befits a preacher to consider.
He very frequently and very sharply rebuked hypocrisy, especially that of the scribes, Pharisees, and priests. The scribes were doctors of the Law, while the Pharisees were, like religious today, more observant than others in austerities and ceremonies. He pronounces upon them those eternal woes, namely of damnation, explaining their hypocrisy in many matters throughout Matthew 23.
Nevertheless, he first teaches that those presiding, even if evil teachers, are to be revered and obeyed when they command lawful things, but that their lives, when evil, are not to be imitated. Hence he says: “The scribes and Pharisees have sat upon the chair of Moses,” that is, they have received the office of teaching.
Thus Chrysostom, commenting on “upon the chair,” and so forth, says: “See how you sit upon the chair. An evil priest acquires through his priesthood not dignity but guilt. You sit in judgment. For by living well and teaching well you instruct the people how they ought to live; but by speaking well and living badly you instruct God how he ought to condemn you.” This is in Distinction 40, canon Multi.
Therefore our priests, prelates of the Church, and preachers, who succeed them, have sat and now sit upon the chair—that is, they have received the office and authority of teaching, instructing, and governing the people, just as Moses had. Therefore, “Whatever they say to you,” namely what pertains to their office, “preserve” in your mind “and perform” in deed; but “according to their works,” namely when they are evil, “do not act.”
He taught the same by example when he sent the cleansed lepers to the priests, even if they were evil, to offer sacrifice according to the Law.
He calls it hypocrisy to display sanctity outwardly while inwardly possessing wickedness. Hence he compares them to whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful and painted, but inwardly are full of the filth and uncleanness of corpses.
He also asserts that they are hypocrites because they built the tombs of the prophets whom their fathers had killed. For by building and venerating the prophets’ tombs they intimated to the people that they detested the crimes of the fathers who had killed them. Nevertheless, they imitated them in deed by seeking to kill Jesus, the Lord of the prophets. Hence they pronounced against themselves the sentence upon their own detestable deed.
He also calls them hypocrites because they tithed mint, dill, and every herb, as though by this they wished to show that they observed the Law even in the smallest matters, yet omitted its weightier things, namely right judgment and charity.
Likewise, because they devoured widows’ houses while feigning long prayer.
Likewise, because they took away the key of knowledge—that is, the power to teach the observance of the commandments by which heaven is opened—and yet neither entered themselves by observing them nor permitted others to enter, because of their evil example or false doctrine.
Hence elsewhere Christ says to his disciples: “Take heed against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” The apostles afterward understood that this was said about their doctrine, which appeared true but was false.
Likewise, because they went around sea and dry land to make one proselyte, that is, to convert a Gentile to Judaism, whom they afterward made worse than themselves through their evil example.
Likewise, because they honored God with their lips by saying psalms, but in prayer their heart was far from God.
Likewise, because they repeatedly cleansed hands, platters, dishes, and cups, as though zealous for cleanliness, but did not cleanse their hearts inwardly from wickedness.
Likewise, because they saw and reproved the speck—that is, other people’s small defects—but did not see or take care to remove the beam, that is, great sins, in the eyes of their own mind.
Likewise, because they made scruples for others when people were healed on the Sabbath, reckoning that the Sabbath was violated, although they themselves took care of brute animals on the Sabbath or raised them from a pit.
Likewise, because they asked him certain things as though wishing to know the truth of the matter, when they wished to calumniate him, as concerning the tribute to be given to Caesar.
“And woe to you lawyers,” he says, “who load human beings with burdens they cannot carry, and do not touch the loads with one finger.” Here Chrysostom says: “Such also are priests today, who command every justice to the people but themselves preserve not even the least. Such are those who impose a heavy weight upon those coming to penance, who speak and do not act. Thus, while the punishment of present penance is avoided because it is heavy, the future punishment, which is most heavy, is incurred.”
He gives the example of a young man who, when a heavy load is placed upon his shoulders, throws it off. And he adds: “If we err by imposing a small penance, is it not better to render an account to God for mercy than for cruelty?” This is in Cause 26, Question 7.
He chastised not only by word the sacrilegious and simoniacs signified by those buying and selling in the Temple, saying, “Do not make my Father’s house a house of commerce,” and at another time, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves,” but also expelled them with a whip from the Temple, that is, from the Temple’s portico. Concerning this, see what is contained in Cause 16, Question 7; we have spoken about it above; and Cause 1, Question 1, canon Qui studet.
Against the wrathful and the degrees of anger, he intimated punishments, saying: “If anyone is angry with his brother, he shall be liable to judgment,” and so forth.
Against the envious scribes and Pharisees, who out of envy persecuted him and calumniated his miracles and works of holiness, and who, in order to extinguish his fame and fruit, handed him over to Pilate to be crucified—for Matthew says that he knew they had handed him over out of envy—he said: “Your house shall be left to you desolate,” namely of every temporal and spiritual good. And elsewhere: “So shall it be for this most wicked generation,” namely that an unclean spirit should enter it with seven others, that is, with the universality of vices.
He taught that one must beware of taking usury, saying according to Luke: “Give a loan, hoping for nothing from it.” This saying is cited in Extra, title On Usury, canon Consuluit.
Against those who cause scandal, he says according to Matthew: “Woe to the world because of scandals. It is necessary that scandals come”—not absolutely, but, according to Thomas, presupposing human negligence concerning the salvation of oneself and one’s neighbor. “But woe,” Christ adds, “to that person through whom scandal comes.” Material on scandal is found at length in the Second Part. According to Jerome, it must be observed that “woe” conveys eternal damnation.
Against the slothful who do not work well because of weariness, he says: “Cast the lazy servant into the exterior darkness.” And: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” And to the apostles sleeping from weariness he says: “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”
Against the impenitent, he says: “Unless you do penance, you shall all perish alike.”
Against the unbelieving, he says: “Whoever does not believe,” namely the evangelical doctrine, “shall be condemned.” Indeed, according to John, Jesus says: “He has already been judged,” that is, one who perseveres in unbelief is regarded as condemned.
§ I. On His Teaching concerning the Virtues Necessary for Salvation
Concerning faith, he says: “You believe in God; believe also in me,” namely that I am not only a human being but also God. To believe in him is, by believing, to approach him through good works.
That one attains glory through this living faith he shows in what he adds: “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” that is, diverse rewards predestined for the elect according to the variety of their merits. “If it were otherwise,” he says—that is, if it were not so—“I would have told you, because I go to prepare a place for you,” by predestining it. But he does not indicate this, because it has already been done.
And he adds: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I shall come again and receive you to myself.” That is, although the mansions of rewards have been prepared through predestination, another preparation must take place, namely through your good working, so that you may attain possession of the mansion prepared—that is, predestined—for you.
And this second preparation, namely through working, that is, through the living faith that will be in you while I am gone and you do not see me but nevertheless believe and act according to faith, means: “I shall come at your death and receive you to myself,” that is, into the eternal kingdom. Augustine explains it this way in On Penance, Distinction 4.
And elsewhere, as Mark testifies, he says: “Have faith in God. All things are possible to one who believes. And all things whatsoever that you ask while praying, believe that you shall receive them, and they shall come to pass for you,” namely things lawfully sought that are expedient for you.
And after the Resurrection, when he sent his disciples to preach, he said: “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved,” namely by possessing faith, form [read: formed faith].
Through hope he strengthened the disciples amid tribulations, saying: “You are those who have remained with me in my temptations, and I dispose a kingdom to you,” as he himself says according to Luke.
He led people toward confidence in the forgiveness of sins, saying to the paralytic: “Have confidence, son; your sins are forgiven you.” He aroused them toward that same confidence, which must be possessed amid tribulations and temptations, or toward hope in divine help, saying: “Have confidence; I have conquered the world,” as John relates.
He commanded the possession of charity, recalling God’s ancient command, namely: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart,” and so forth, “and your neighbor as yourself,” as Matthew writes. To fulfill this, in his last discourse he frequently reminded the disciples, saying: “A new commandment I give you,” that is, one renewing the human being spiritually, “that you love one another as I have loved you.”
The commanded love of God is included in the love of one’s neighbor by the rule: “That for the sake of which each thing is loved is itself loved more.” Therefore, since one’s neighbor is to be loved for God’s sake, God himself is to be loved much more.
He invited them to the interior acts of charity, namely joy and peace, saying, as Matthew testifies: “When human beings have persecuted you and, lying because of me, have spoken every evil against you, rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven”; and again through Luke: “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
He commanded that peace be preserved, saying in Mark’s Gospel: “Have salt in yourselves,” that is, discretion, “and have peace among yourselves.” And in his last discourse, according to John, he says: “Peace I leave to you,” namely to be preserved; “my peace I give to you,” that is, true peace, which consists in conforming oneself to the divine will and subjecting the passions to reason.
His greeting was, “Peace be to you,” namely the peace that has been described, as John testifies. His farewell was, “Go in peace,” as he says to Mary Magdalene and others.
He commanded exterior acts of love. Concerning spiritual alms, he says: “If your brother has sinned against you, correct him between you and him alone,” and so forth, as Matthew writes. You have the exposition of this in the Second Part, title On Sloth.
Concerning corporal alms, he says: “Give what remains as alms,” namely from it, “and all things are clean for you,” that is, you do not contract the uncleanness of sin from retaining these things. This is in On Penance, Distinction 1, canon Medicamentum. Concerning when alms is commanded and when it is counseled, you have material in the Second Part, title On Avarice.
Augustine says in On Penance, Distinction 5, canon 1, that in the judgment of the heart the alms of the giver must be considered. One must no longer consider how much he gives of what he can, but with what mind and affection he gives it.
He gives the example of the widow who put two small coins into the Temple treasury, that is, the receptacle for alms. As Luke and Mark relate, when Jesus looked upon those then placing gifts in the treasury and many put in great gifts, seeing that widow put in two denarii, Jesus called the disciples and commended or praised the widow above all who had put in great gifts, because from great affection and devotion she had given all she possessed, although it was little, while the others had given from their abundance.
He teaches prudence, saying according to Matthew’s Gospel: “Be prudent as serpents.” And because the prudence of the world is cunning and deception, he recalls them from this by adding, “and simple as doves,” so that they do not devise deceits against others.
Concerning the parts of prudence, with regard to memory he says: “Remember Lot’s wife,” who, because she looked back, was turned into a statue of salt as a terror to those who withdraw from a holy resolution.
With regard to foresight for the future, he says: “Make friends for yourselves from the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail they may receive you into eternal tabernacles.” Luke testifies to this. That is: Give alms to the poor, who through their merits and prayers may procure a mansion in heaven for you. Do this from the mammon of iniquity, namely from riches acquired through excessive solicitude, or distributed unequally, or, if unlawfully acquired, restored when the persons to whom restitution must be made are known, or distributed to the poor if they are unknown.
With regard to circumspection concerning present things, he says: “Watch, because you do not know at what hour the Lord is to come.” For the householder keeps watch when he fears a thief and does not permit his house to be dug through. That thief is the devil, digging through it with temptations of vices so that he may steal the treasure of virtues.
He especially instructed that diligence, a part of prudence, must be possessed in acquiring beatitude and virtues, saying: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added to you,” as Matthew relates.
Concerning the act of justice, he says according to John: “Do not judge according to the face,” that is, according to acceptance of persons, “but judge a just judgment.”
Concerning the virtues annexed to justice that must be exercised by us, as regards religion he says, as Luke testifies: “One must always pray and never cease.” This is understood as meaning that, even if not always in act, one must at least always pray in readiness, so that the desire of charity from which true prayer proceeds may always be in us.
Or one must always pray, that is, pray sometimes at every season. As an example of prayer’s continuation or frequency he gives the unjust judge who feared neither God nor a human being. Although he had repeatedly refused to hear the widow who petitioned him in her case, he finally heard her, overcome by her importunity.
And elsewhere, as he himself declares, he says: “Ask, and you shall receive.” What must principally be requested he declares, as John writes, saying: “Ask, and you shall receive, so that your joy may be full.” This is fulfilled in the blessed life.
According to Luke, he added the similitude of the friend who came to his friend at midnight so that he would lend him three loaves. Although he at first refused, when the other persevered in knocking, he finally arose and gave him as many as he needed.
He led people toward works of dutifulness toward parents by citing the command of the Law, for God said: “Honor your father and mother,” and so forth.
He urged obedience to superiors, namely to God and to human beings, saying as contained in Matthew: “Take my yoke,” namely of obedience, “upon you, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke,” namely of obedience, “is sweet, and my burden,” namely of commandments, “is light”—light to reason indeed, but also to sensuality already accustomed to it.
And again: “Whatever they,” namely those presiding, “say to you, preserve and perform,” provided that it is not contrary to God’s commands. “For one who hears you,” that is, obeys, “hears me,” he says according to Luke; “and one who despises you,” namely the prelates by not obeying, “despises me.”
He invited people to show mercy to their neighbors, saying: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
He called them to penance, which is also a virtue, saying: “Do penance, for the kingdom of God will draw near”—because penance disposes toward grace, which leads to glory.
He wished them to be brave and constant, for he says: “Do not fear those who kill the body and after this have nothing more that they can do,” so that, namely, you do not desert truth or the virtues because of fear; “but fear him who can destroy soul and body in Gehenna.” Matthew relates these words.
He also shows from this that patience is good, that is, virtuous, because people bring forth its fruit in patience. After relating the many tribulations of the elect, he concluded, as Luke testifies: “In your patience you shall possess your souls.”
He taught that perseverance, a part of fortitude, brings one to the crown, saying: “Not the one who begins, but the one who perseveres to the end shall be saved.”
He did not pass over sobriety and temperance with the things annexed to them. For when he said according to John, “When the grain of wheat has died, it bears much fruit,” he intimated that mortification of the senses through continence produces abundant meritorious fruit.
He illustrated abstinence by example, fasting forty days and nights. Concerning the disciples, he says: “When the bridegroom is taken away from them,” namely withdrawn from them through the Ascension, “then they shall fast.” Yet amid such great abstinence, even when they were not fasting, he governed them so that, when overcome by hunger while passing through fields, they rubbed ears of grain in their hands and ate the kernels.
Concerning conjugal chastity, he says according to Matthew: “Whoever leaves his wife except because of fornication causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries one left by another commits adultery and perpetrates adultery.”
He himself preserved virginity together with his mother and her spouse, and recommended it to his disciple John as belonging to a more perfect state. He recommended rather than commanded it, and also always preserved it most excellently.
He commanded humility, saying: “Learn from me, because I am meek and humble of heart.” Meekness conveys mildness, which, like humility, is assigned to temperance.
And elsewhere he says: “When you have done all things that were commanded to you, say: We are unprofitable servants, and we have done what we ought to have done.” He also says repeatedly: “He who humbles himself shall be exalted”; and again: “Whoever humbles himself like this little child,” whom he had called to himself, “is greater in the kingdom of heaven.”
As it is said in the Book of Wisdom, divine Wisdom incarnate teaches sobriety, that is, temperance; wisdom, that is, prudence; justice; and virtue, that is, fortitude. Nothing is better for human beings in life than these.
§ II. On His Teaching concerning the Counsels
No one is obligated to fulfill the counsels while he is free, but if he binds himself to them by a vow, then he is bound to them by necessity. When these are observed, they are of greater merit and lead toward perfection.
Hence Jerome says: “If you do not wish to use the Lord’s counsel, you will obtain less good. Likewise, where counsel is given, the decision belongs to the one making the offering; where a command is given, necessity belongs to the one obeying.” This is in Cause 14, Question 1, canon Quod praecipitur.
Their observance makes the person who observes them a perfect disciple of Christ, and places a person obligated to them—namely poverty, chastity, and obedience—in the perfection of a state, though not in personal perfection. That is, he is in a state of perfection because these dispose him instrumentally toward perfection, not because they make the person already perfect.
Hence the Lord Jesus says, as Luke relates: “Unless anyone renounces all that he possesses, he cannot be my disciple.” We possess temporal things, which are renounced through poverty; the body, which is renounced as regards its greatest pleasures, namely even sexual pleasures lawful in themselves, as in marriage, through chastity; and the soul, whose chief power, as though commanding the others, is the will, which is renounced through obedience.
In the observance of these counsels consists the perfect discipleship of Christ, which the apostles observed and true religious preserve. But one must persevere in observance of this kind.
Hence Christ adds the example of one wishing to build a tower, which signifies the height of perfection. He first considers the expenses needed to complete it; otherwise he does not begin, lest, beginning and not completing, he be mocked. So one who wishes to assume such a state ought first to examine altogether well whether he is prepared to complete everything and afterward pursue it if the resolution has been adopted. For by turning back, even if he wears the habit and does not intend to complete the tower of perfection, he is mocked by everyone.
He gives another example about a king against whom another comes to fight, because if he does not see himself fit to resist, he does not undertake the war. When anyone adopts discipleship and a state of this kind, the ancient enemy prepares himself to tempt him more terribly than others, and in a thousand ways. Hence one who is not prepared to suffer everything, even to death, and always to fight courageously should not enter a war of this kind.
It is nevertheless true, as has been said, that no one is compelled to this, but is invited to it as something better. This is evident from Christ’s manner of speaking about each of these counsels.
For concerning poverty he says in Matthew to a certain young man: “If you wish to be perfect, sell everything you possess and give to the poor, and follow me.” He does not command, but leaves it to freedom of the will.
Concerning chastity, after he had seen that some abstain from the sexual act by nature, namely because of frigidity; some by accident, namely those cut or castrated by human beings; and others by spontaneous will, namely those who have castrated themselves for the kingdom of heaven, that is, abstain from acts of this kind for God’s sake, he added: “He who can receive it,” namely such a state, “let him receive it.” It is as though he said: No one is compelled.
Concerning obedience, he says: “Whoever wishes to come after me,” that is, to a state of perfection, “let him deny himself,” that is, his own will, “and take up his cross,” by mortifying the senses and pleasures, “and follow me.”
And note what Augustine says to Valerius: “I confess simply before my soul: just as I have with difficulty found better people than those who have advanced in monasteries, so I have with difficulty found worse than those who have failed in monasteries.” This is in Distinction 47, canon Quantumlibet. Religious should therefore attend to the observance of the counsels.
Concerning the counsels of patience, the Lord says: “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other also. And to the one who wishes to contend with you in judgment and take your tunic, leave him your cloak also. And if anyone compels you for a thousand paces, go with him,” and so forth.
Augustine says that these precepts are to be understood more according to the preparation of the mind than according to the work that is done openly, so that patience together with benevolence may be maintained in the secrecy of the soul, while outwardly that is done which is seen to benefit those to whom we ought to wish well. This is in Cause 23, Question 1, canon Paratus.
Therefore, as regards the soul’s preparation, they are commandments: a person is to be prepared to suffer an even greater or another injury if the same person should inflict it, with patience and without hatred. But literally to do this outwardly is under counsel, namely when he believes it would benefit the one committing the injury and not add evil to evil. Another moral exposition is also given, which I omit.
To give alms when the Lord says, “Give, and it shall be given to you,” is under counsel when a person has nothing superfluous to his station, even if he possesses something beyond what nature requires for himself and his own, and when he sees need but not extreme necessity.
Likewise, “Give a loan,” provided that profit is not hoped for, because it would then be usury. This is in Extra, title On Usury, canon Consuluit. Christ says: “Give a loan, hoping for nothing from it.”
To do good to those who hate you and to pray for those who calumniate you, which the Lord says in the Gospel: as regards the special spiritual benefits and special prayers we perform for friends, to do this for enemies falls under counsel; as regards common benefits, or if they were in extreme necessity, it would be commanded, according to Thomas.
Human beings are inclined to desire riches, pleasures, vainglory, or honors. They hold these in honor and flee their opposites, namely poverty, bodily infirmity, vileness, and dejection. Therefore the Lord Jesus, with Luke relating not a parable but a true history, sets forth riches [read: the rich man] and poor Lazarus. The rich man was wealthy and avaricious, did not help the beggar, was clothed in purple and fine linen because of pride and vainglory, and feasted splendidly every day because of gluttony, after which lust follows.
By contrast, the beggar Lazarus was full of sores and so abject and despised that he remained wounded in the road, forsaken by everyone. But when the rich man died, he was buried in hell with his goods and, tormented in the flame, could not obtain even a drop of water for refreshment. When Lazarus died with his misery, he was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom and now rests in glory, so that by this example human beings may be drawn away from worldly things and willingly bear austerities, infirmities, and other adversities.
§ III. On Jesus’s Replies to Inquiries Made by the Jews for the Sake of Tempting and Disparaging Him, Concerning Various Subjects, and on the Resolution of Questions
When Matthew the Apostle, converted from being a publican, made a great feast for Jesus in his house, to which he had invited many sinners so that they too might be converted, the Pharisees asked Jesus’s disciples: “Why does your master eat with publicans and sinners?” Jesus replied: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ill do.” That is: I came into the world as a physician, to heal, as Isaiah says, the infirmities of souls. Therefore, just as it neither befits nor behooves a physician of bodies to visit the healthy but the sick, so it behooves me, the physician of souls, to associate with infirm sinners so that I may heal them. Hence he concludes: “I did not come to call the just”—for there were none, since “all have sinned,” as the Apostle says in Romans 3—“but sinners to penance,” which is the medicine.
When the scribes and Pharisees asked why his disciples transgressed the traditions of the elders by not washing their hands when they ate, it was because the scribes taught the people to wash their hands frequently when eating, so that they might thus appear to observe what the Lord said through Isaiah: “Wash; be clean.” This is understood of cleansing the mind through penance. Christ’s disciples sometimes did not wash their hands, either through inattention or because they lacked the opportunity.
Jesus answered them: “Why do you also transgress God’s commandment for the sake of your traditions?” By this he showed that they did not reasonably rebuke the disciples: first, because they themselves committed graver things, for it is worse to transgress the commandments of God than those of human beings. Since they themselves transgressed God’s commandment, as he shows, they were unfit to rebuke others for transgressing human traditions. Second, not washing one’s hands before eating was not in itself a sin.
He declares that the scribes and Pharisees transgressed God’s commandment, saying: “God said, ‘Honor your father,’” and so forth, “but you say”—that is, you teach children to say to their parents—“Whatever gift is from me will profit you,” and he will not honor his father. This is an obscure expression. To clarify it, one must know that the scribes and Pharisees, or priests, persuaded the crowds to make vows to the Lord or the Temple from their possessions. When they wished to fulfill them, but parents who needed those possessions objected and asked rather that the children assist their own parents, the priests taught the children to answer them: “O my father, the gift that is from me”—that is, what I have vowed to the Temple—“will profit your soul just as it will mine.” Thus, by offering it to the Temple, even though he did not honor his father by giving to him and relieving his need, it was said to suffice for salvation. Yet in reality this was contrary to that commandment concerning the honoring of parents.
Or it may be expounded interrogatively in this way. When a father sought assistance from his son, the son would say, according to the teaching given them by the priests: “My father, will whatever gift is from me profit you?” That is: How could the gift I vowed profit you if I gave it to you, since I owe it to God? Thus parents, fearing that they would harm their own souls by turning their sons away from offerings to the Temple, permitted the sons to give away the things they themselves needed. Through their teaching the scribes thereby made void that commandment of God, as though it did not bind children.
Jesus declares that eating without washing one’s hands does not defile a person, that is, is not a sin. Hence, calling the crowds together, he said: “It is not what enters the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.” He means that food of itself, whatever kind it is and however it is taken, whether with washed or unwashed hands, does not stain the soul with sin. But what comes from the bodily mouth as words, or from the mouth of the heart as desire, does stain it, if it is an evil word or desire.
For when someone sins through gluttony, that sin does not arise from eating a particular delicate food or a food forbidden on a certain day. Someone else eats a similar food, or eats on the same day, without the vice of gluttony. Rather, the first person sins because he acts from a disordered appetite, and this proceeds from the mouth of the heart. Certain foods were forbidden in the Law as figures and for another cause, not because they were unclean in themselves.
When Peter said that the Pharisees had been scandalized by these words, Jesus replied: “Let them alone; they are blind and leaders of the blind.” He teaches that the scandal of the Pharisees—proceeding not from ignorance or frailty but from malice—is not to be heeded in such a way that good works or true doctrine are omitted to avoid it.
When Peter asked, “Explain the parable to us,” Jesus spoke sternly to them, in the manner of a good teacher who reproves his disciples for dullness of understanding so as to sharpen them. “Are you also still without understanding?” he said. “Do you not understand that everything entering the mouth goes into the belly and is discharged into the privy?” That is, part of what is eaten is discharged as fecal matter, namely the coarser part, while the subtler part is converted into nourishment. This does not of itself defile a person; food is not unclean in itself. Rather, what proceeds from the mouth first proceeds from the heart. For evil thoughts and all sins proceed from the heart, that is, from the will, according to Ambrose’s saying: “None of us is held guilty unless he has strayed by his own will.” This is in Cause 15, Question 1, canon Nec est.
Luke relates that on another occasion a Pharisee invited Jesus to dine and began in his mind to accuse him because he had not been baptized—that is, washed—before the meal. Christ, seeing his thought and thereby manifesting his divinity, rebuked their vain superstition: they exercised great diligence about exterior cleanliness and none about interior purity. He said: “Fool, did not he who made what is outside also make what is inside?”—that is, the soul, which is principal and must therefore be cleansed more than the body.
Again, while Jesus was traveling through the grainfields, his disciples, overcome by hunger, began to gather ears of grain, rub out the kernels with their hands, and eat; and this was on the Sabbath. The Pharisees therefore approached and said: “Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful on the Sabbath.” Christ replied by affirming that they were innocent, because necessity in matters of this kind has no law, either as regards the commanded day or as regards another’s property. This is in On Consecration, Distinction 5, canon Discipulos, with the gloss. Christ brought forward as an example David and his companions, who, when hungry, ate the loaves of proposition offered to them by Abimelech the high priest, although according to the Law laypeople were not permitted to eat them. David is not reproved for this.
On another occasion, while he was teaching in the Temple, the chief priests and Pharisees asked Jesus by what authority he did the things he was doing. He answered them: “I also will ask you one thing; answer me. Whence was John’s baptism: from God, or from human beings?” They refused to answer because they saw that whatever reply they made would confound them. If they said, “From God,” Christ would infer: “Why, then, did you not believe him?” If they said, “From human beings,” they feared being stoned by the people, who held John in the greatest reverence as a prophet. They therefore said that they did not know. Christ answered them: “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.” They asked in order to calumniate, and therefore he did not answer them.
§ IV
Again, when Jesus said in his preaching, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see,” this is not understood solely of bodily sight of Christ, for Caiaphas, Pilate, and many other reprobates saw him in that way. Nor is it understood solely of spiritual vision, for the fathers of the Old Testament saw in that way. Rather, it concerns both kinds of vision together, which the Apostles and many others possessed when they saw and believed in him. For seeing the incarnate Word himself, from whom comes our beatification, was as it were a certain fruition.
As though wishing to display a desire for beatitude, a certain lawyer asked him, although he was tempting him to discover whether he knew how to answer: “Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?” Jesus answered: “What is written in the Law?” That is: If you ask for the sake of knowing, since you are a teacher of the Law you ought to know. You, therefore, tell me. When he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart,” and so forth, “and your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus said: “You have answered rightly; do this and you shall live.” You have the full exposition of this in the Fourth Part, title On Charity. Here it is also shown that assent is to be given when adversaries speak the truth.
The lawyer then asked: “Who is my neighbor?” He did so not to be taught, but from arrogance, regarding himself as so good and perfect that no one was similar or close to him in goodness. Therefore the evangelist who narrates this says that he wished to justify himself. He was so untaught that he did not truly understand who is called a neighbor, but thought that one close by nature or similar to himself in morals and knowledge was his neighbor.
Through a parable the Lord Jesus declared that every human being who needs something or can assist another is our neighbor. Since every person in the present life needs many things, both in soul and body, and can help another in some respect, every person is therefore our neighbor. And because Jesus himself has assisted us all most greatly by rescuing us from death, he is above all our neighbor and must be loved by us principally.
Because the parable concerned him as one descending from heaven to raise us to heaven, when he spoke it, as Luke the evangelist says, Jesus himself looked up to heaven. “A certain man,” he said, “was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers,” and so forth.
This man signifies the human race, which descended from the state of true peace it saw within itself—for Jerusalem is interpreted “vision of peace”—when it transgressed the commandment in the earthly paradise, and came to Jericho, that is, to this world full of change and misery. For Jericho is interpreted as the moon, which changes frequently.
The robbers among whom it fell were the demons. Through original sin and the actual sins added to it, they stripped the human race of the gratuitous goods of the virtues and wounded it in its natural powers: through ignorance; malice; frailty or weakness in doing good; and concupiscence, that is, inclination toward evil. It was not, however, wholly killed by them, but left half-alive, because although liable to death and very near it, it was nevertheless capable of being healed through Christ’s redemption.
Along this road of the present life, where the wounded man lay pierced with wounds, a certain priest passed by. He saw him and went on without helping him in any way. For Aaron, the first priest, together with all the others of the priestly order who offered sacrifices for the people, although they understood the wounds of the human race, knew that they could not heal even themselves, much less the human race.
Likewise, the Levite signifies Moses, leader of the people, together with all the kings and leaders of the world or of that people. Although he knew its misery, he could not help it. This is what the text says: “Likewise a Levite, when he passed by that road and saw him, did the same” as the priest.
But a certain Samaritan, making a journey there, saw the wounded man and was moved by mercy. This is the Son of God, our guardian, for “Samaritan” is interpreted “guardian.” He made that very journey when, through the assumption of our flesh, he became a wayfarer. Perfectly understanding our misery, he was moved by mercy and drew near to the wounded man. He did not place himself in the same condition in which the man lay, but near it, because he assumed flesh like ours—that is, passible flesh—but not our guilt.
He poured stinging wine into the wounded man’s wounds and afterward soothing oil, binding the wounds with bandages. For in himself he displayed both justice, inflicting a penalty in satisfaction for sin, and soothing mercy—that is, mercy remitting sins—which he offered to the human race. He left the powers of these things, namely of his Passion, in the sacraments, and thus bound the wounds.
He placed the man upon his own beast, because, as Peter says, he himself bore our sins—that is, the penalty for sins—in his body upon the wood of the cross.
On the next day, that is, after the Resurrection, which was for him another state than when he was mortal, he called the innkeeper, namely Peter and every successor of his, together with every prelate comprehended under Peter’s name. He brought forth two denarii: either the two Testaments of Sacred Scripture; or the two commandments of love of God and neighbor; or authority together with a good life and doctrine. He said to him, “Take care of him,” as Christ said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”
“And whatever you spend over and above”—whether by doing more in conduct than you are bound to do, or in doctrine by adding beyond the two denarii of the Old and New Testaments sometimes even sayings of the Gentiles—will be repaid. Paul acted in this way: although he could lawfully seek support from the Corinthians to whom he preached, he abstained so that he might bear fruit among them, and worked with his hands to provide for himself and his companions. In his teaching he also sometimes cited poets or philosophers, as is evident in Acts and his Epistles.
Therefore, when the Samaritan returns—that is, when he comes to judgment—he will repay such people a reward for what they have spent over and above. After this parable had been told, Jesus asked the lawyer which of those three—the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan—seemed to him to have been a neighbor to the wounded man.
The lawyer answered: “He who showed mercy to him.” Jesus said to him: “Go, and do likewise”: when you see someone in need, assist him as your neighbor; and regard the one who assists you as your neighbor as well. Because I supremely free you and all others, you must love me as your principal neighbor and not tempt me.
On another occasion another lawyer asked Jesus, tempting him: “Master, what is the great commandment in the Law?” He replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart,” and so forth. “This is the greatest and first commandment,” namely in dignity and priority.
He says “with your whole heart,” because, as Prosper says in the book On the Contemplative Life, a person sins in that part in which he loves less. If we love with the whole heart, there will be nothing in us by which we serve the desires of sin. What is it to love God except to occupy the soul with him, to conceive an affection for enjoying his vision, hatred for sin, and disgust for the world? This is in On Penance, Distinction 2, canon Ergo.
Jesus added: “The second is like this,” namely in usefulness, for the one includes the other. Whoever truly loves God also loves his neighbor, because God commands this and because the neighbor is God’s noblest work. Whoever truly loves his neighbor certainly loves God as well, according to the rule, “That for the sake of which each thing is loved is itself loved more.” For one’s neighbor is to be loved by us for God’s sake: because God commands it, and because the neighbor was created to attain God in the fatherland with us.
He expresses the manner of love: “You shall love your neighbor,” he says, “as yourself.” The likeness is in kind. A person is not bound to love his neighbor as much as himself, but to love himself more than his neighbor. Yet he ought to love his neighbor for the same things and in the same order as he loves himself: first, for good morals and the attainment of eternal life; second, as regards the body, by providing for his needs insofar as he can. Prosper declares this in the cited chapter Ergo in On Penance, Distinction 2.
There Prosper also says: “In love itself we must preserve the lawful measure and not overturn the established order of love. Those overturn the order of love who either love the world, which is to be despised; or love their bodies, which should be loved less, too much; or do not love their neighbors as themselves; or perhaps do not love God more than themselves.” According to Thomas in the Second Part of the Second Part, the order itself, and not only love, falls under the commandment.
Hence it is said in Canticles 1 [read: Canticles 2]: “The king”—namely Christ—“brought me into the wine cellar,” namely the Church, where there is the principal wine of charity, “and he ordered charity in me.” That is, he not only gave the wine of charity but also its order.
“On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” The first is found in Deuteronomy 6; the second is found in Leviticus 19, although in these words: “You shall love your friend as yourself.” One whom Christ calls a neighbor is called a friend there. As Prosper and all other doctors say, “neighbor” means not merely someone joined to us by a degree of blood relationship, but all human beings who share our nature. This is in On Penance, Distinction 2, chapter Ergo.
Everything handed down to us in the Law and the Prophets was written to this end: that through it we might know God and the things to be done by us, and, knowing, might love God, ourselves, and our neighbor in due manner. The Apostle therefore rightly says: “The whole Law is fulfilled in one saying: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Rational self-love is included in this love, and the love of God much more, as has been said.
When those Pharisees and scribes had assembled, Christ then put a question to them, asking: “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?”—that is, God’s or a human being’s? They answered, “David’s.” This is the error of the Jews: they not only do not believe that the Christ or Messiah promised them in the Law has already come, as indeed he has, but they also believe that when he comes he will not be the natural Son of God, but a mere human being and a son of God through adoption and principal grace, not by nature. They therefore say that he is David’s son, because he will be born from David’s stock like other human beings.
Jesus refutes their error by the authority of David himself in the psalm, which they hold to be most true. Hence Jesus says: “How, then, does David, speaking in the Spirit, say: ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand,’” and so forth?
This is expounded truthfully: “The Lord”—the Father—“said to my Lord,” namely Christ his Son: “Lord” by divinity, “my” by the assumption of flesh from my lineage. For if David had regard only to God the Creator, he would not have said “my” rather than “our,” since God rules all people. “Sit at my right hand”: according to divinity, be equal to me in glory. God’s saying is his doing. According to the humanity, however, to sit at the right hand is to rest in the preeminent state of glory above all angels and saints.
The words “Until I place your enemies,” and so forth, may be taken indefinitely. It is as though he said: Because your enemies, whether unbelievers or demons, will always be placed and remain beneath your feet—that is, subject to you—you will therefore always sit at the right hand.
Or it can be understood with a definite term, so as to mark the time of his coming to judgment. For although he is now situated locally in the empyrean heaven, then in his glorified humanity he will descend into the air, visible to all the good and the evil. God will then place all Christ’s enemies beneath his feet, that is, will manifest to everyone that Christ as man is the true Lord and God and judge of all—something unbelievers now do not believe.
Jesus therefore concludes by convicting them of error: “If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” That is: a father does not customarily call his own son “lord,” but “subject.” Yet because David knew in the Spirit that Jesus Christ would descend from him according to humanity in such a way as nevertheless to be true God, he called him his Lord. Confounded by this, they did not dare question Jesus further. Hence it appears that this occurred near the time of the Passion.
§ V
On one occasion, when at dawn he had come from the Mount of Olives to the Temple, the scribes and Pharisees brought before him a certain adulteress and said: “Master, this woman was just now caught in adultery. Moses commanded in the Law that women of this kind be stoned. What, therefore, do you say?” As John says, in relating this they asked the question not for the sake of knowing the truth, but to tempt and calumniate him.
For they had reasoned and agreed among themselves: If he answers that the adulteress is to be stoned, we shall then defame him among the people for cruelty and for having no mercy or kindness toward sinners. But because he knows himself pleasing to the people on account of the mercy and piety he displays toward sinners, he will avoid saying this. If, however, he says that she should be spared and not stoned, we shall accuse him of transgressing the Law, or of teaching contrary to Moses’s Law. He must therefore give one of these two replies, and whichever he gives, we shall catch him in his word. He will be ashamed to remain silent, lest he appear ignorant. Yet there is no wisdom and there is no counsel against the Lord.
After hearing the question proposed to him, Jesus did not answer immediately, but bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. In this he instructs judges not to be hasty in delivering judgments or in answering questions. Rather, as Gregory says in Cause 3, Question 7, canon Postulatus, one should examine the case with the finger of discernment and inquiry in the earth of the heart and afterward deliver judgment according to the law.
When the scribes persisted so that Jesus would answer, he rose and said: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.” That is: justice requires that the adulteress be punished, but justice also dictates that she not be accused and condemned by those guilty of graver sins and worse than hers, such as those accusing her.
Again bending down, he wrote on the ground. The evangelist does not say what he wrote. Some say, “Earth accuses earth.” Others say that he wrote the sins of the accusers, but in such a way that they alone could read their own sins and could not read those of others, lest they be defamed.
After this, the scribes and Pharisees began to withdraw one after another, beginning with the elders, perhaps because they were ashamed of their sins, which they read, and feared that others would read them. The adulteress remained alone, that is, without accusers, for the disciples and crowds were present.
Jesus rose and said: “Where are those who accused you? Has no one condemned you?” She said: “No one, Lord.” That is: I am reserved for your judgment alone, you who alone are without sin. Pass sentence, but according to your great mercy, for justice alone condemns.
The Lord said: “Neither will I condemn you.” Augustine says that the Lord freed the sinful woman because there was no one who could justly cast a stone. For how could one stone another when he knew himself deserving of stoning? None of them was without grave sin. Venial sins, however, were remitted through ceremonies, according to the gloss there. “Venial” here means sins that were truly mortal but of such a kind that through the ceremonies of the Law they were remitted with respect to avoiding the Law’s temporal penalty, though not with respect to God except through interior penance.
The crimes of those Pharisees were therefore so grave that they were punished by death under the Law and were not expiated by sacrifices. This is in On Penance, Distinction 6, canon Qui vult. Whether a judge existing in mortal sin himself sins in passing sentence may be seen in the Third Part, title On Judges.
Nor can just any judge free one condemned to death on the basis of this example. A judge does not possess the absolute authority Christ possessed above every law, as author of all right and Lord of the whole creation. A good judge, Ambrose says, pronounces according to laws and rights. This is in Cause 3, Question 7, canon Iudicet.
“Go,” Jesus added, “and sin no more.” Not only should you not sin in act; you should not even possess the will to sin, but should have a resolution of the will not to sin in the future.
When Jesus was across the Jordan in the borders of Judea, Pharisees came to him and asked, tempting him: “Is it lawful for a man to dismiss his wife for any cause?” He replied: “Have you not read that he who made the human being from the beginning, male and female, said”—namely through Adam—“For this reason a man shall leave father and mother”? That is, he shall not be joined to them in marriage: neither a son to his mother nor a daughter to her father.
This degree alone was prohibited from contracting marriage in the beginning, not the first collateral degree, that is, between brother and sister, because there were no other people. Afterward, however, certain degrees were prohibited by natural law; those and several others by the Mosaic law; and still others were added by canon law, as is evident in Extra, title On Consanguinity and Affinity, final chapter.
“And he shall cleave to his wife.” He speaks in the singular, because he is joined to one, not several. “And the two shall be in one flesh,” that is, for generating one offspring. “Thus they are now not two but one flesh,” that is, one indissoluble bond of matrimony, which cannot be dissolved by a conjugal union with another spouse.
“Therefore, what God has joined”—namely by the conjugal bond instituted by him—“let no human being separate” by his own authority, either by taking another spouse or another woman, nor let a judge separate it by his sentence or law. It is certain that a consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by the pope’s authority or by human law, since this is a matter of divine law, as Gregory says in Cause 27, Question 2, canon Sunt qui dicunt, and as the gloss there says concerning union through copulation. Whether a union of souls expressed through words in the present tense can be dispensed from is doubtful among theologians; nevertheless, the pope grants a dispensation, which canonists hold can be done. You have this material fully in the Third Part, title 1, and in the titles On the Sacraments and On Impediments to Marriage.
From this the Pharisees raised another question, saying: “Why, then, did Moses command that a bill of repudiation be given, a wife be dismissed, and another be taken?” He replied: “Because of the hardness of your heart, Moses permitted you to dismiss your wives. From the beginning, however, it was not so,” that is, it was not thus instituted by God.
Whether giving a bill of repudiation was a sin for them is a doubtful question, and according to the theologians there are arguments on both sides. According to this text, however, it seems truer that no repudiation excused them from sin, but only from the Law’s temporal penalty, which was imposed on adulterers. Hence Christ says: “Because of the hardness of your heart, Moses permitted this.” It was a comparative permission, namely when a lesser evil is permitted—that is, is not punished by law—so as to avoid a greater. Moses thus permitted it to avoid wife-murder. For if they had been unable to dismiss their wives because the law prohibited—that is, punished—it, they would have killed them in order to take others. Chrysostom says this in Cause 31, Question 1, canon Hac ratione, though obscurely; the gloss makes it clear.
Christ says: “But I say to you that whoever dismisses his wife, except for fornication, and takes another, commits adultery.” Thus in the New Testament this is in no way permitted, but is prohibited. This is in Cause 31, Question 1, § Sed obicitur, and it is punished also by human law.
Here one should note that a wife may be dismissed by her husband, or conversely a husband by his wife, in three ways. In one way, as regards the bond, so that it is dissolved, as was done by a bill of repudiation, and the person is joined to another. This can in no way be done after a consummated marriage, unless the marriage were proved to have existed in fact but to have been null in law because a diriment impediment was discovered. Then, properly speaking, the wife is not dismissed, because they were not wife and husband.
If by common consent one spouse were to enter a monastery, which can be done according to Cause 27, Question 2, canon Agathosa, that bond is not thereby dissolved, but passes into a spiritual partnership. A true consummated marriage cannot be dissolved because of any other circumstance arising later, whether heresy, another sin, sorcery that causes impotence, poverty, an incurable illness such as leprosy, or the like, in such a way that one spouse could be joined in marriage or coupled carnally with another. See Cause 32, Question 5, canon Puto and canon Horrendus.
In a second way, a spouse is dismissed as regards cohabitation and mutual service.
This separation cannot be made—that is, one spouse cannot dismiss the other—except because of fornication: adultery, or any intercourse with another man or woman proved in court or notorious in fact. It may also be made because of spiritual fornication, such as idolatry or heresy, and even because of any other mortal sin into which one spouse, especially the wife, wished to lead the other and which the other could not resist. The gloss on Cause 28, Question 1, canons Uxor and Idolatria, says that the spouse may dismiss the other because this is included under the name of the soul’s spiritual fornication.
Because of carnal fornication, even committed once, a spouse may dismiss the other in the manner stated. Because of spiritual fornication, however, this may be done only if the spouse persists in it, as that gloss says.
In no case, however, can one be joined in marriage to another, unless the marriage had been contracted between unbelievers and, after one was converted, the other refused to cohabit except with insult to the Creator, either by seeking to draw the convert back into unbelief or by refusing to cohabit with the convert while the latter remained in the faith. Then the converted spouse may take another spouse.
In a third way, a spouse is dismissed as regards rendering the marriage debt. One spouse cannot deny the debt to the other, when the due circumstances are observed, except because of carnal fornication. This also includes sodomy but not effeminacy, as the gloss says on Cause 32, Question 6, canon Omnes accusationes. The innocent spouse may then deny it, provided that he is certain and has himself remained chaste; otherwise one incontinent person could not repel another incontinent person by denying the debt, as stated in Cause 32, Question 6, canon 1 and the following canon.
Nevertheless, the chaste spouse may reconcile to himself the spouse he knows to have committed adultery and may render the debt to that spouse. Once he has done this, he cannot afterward deny it unless the spouse relapses. This reconciliation is to be counseled and urged upon him according to canon Non turpis and the two following canons, when he sees or believes that the spouse has repented. For if the spouse were persisting in notorious adultery, he ought to dismiss the spouse, that is, deny the debt, as stated in Cause 32, Question 1, canon Dixit Dominus and elsewhere. These matters are treated more fully in the Third Part, title 1, and the matters pertaining to marriage are treated very extensively there.
On the day when Jesus resolved the question about the tribute, as will be said below, the Sadducees, who deny the resurrection of the dead, came to him. They were one sect of the Jews and held a false opinion concerning the resurrection. They asked him: “Master, Moses said: If someone’s brother dies without a son, his brother shall take the dead man’s wife and raise up offspring for his brother. There were among us seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children, and his brother took the wife he had left. When that brother too died without leaving children, the third took her as wife. Likewise, all the others took her successively as wife after the preceding brothers died. Last of all, the woman also died. Therefore, whose wife among the seven will she be in the resurrection?”
Christ answered them: “You err, not knowing the Scriptures,” which assert that the resurrection you deny will occur, “nor the power of God,” because you do not know that he will raise those bodies in such a way that they will [not] live and act as in the present life, as you suppose.
Jesus adds: “For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be like the angels of God.” They will indeed rise in true bodies, not airy ones, and sex will be distinguished in them without any shame. They will be naked because they will be without any concupiscence. In those who were married, some adornment from the sacrament of marriage will remain, together with due love, but there will be no conjugal act there, since those bodies will be incorruptible.
When a cause ceases, its effect will cease. The first cause of marriage was the multiplication of the human race. That will then cease, when the number of those to be saved has been gathered, and so the carnal act, instituted for generation, will cease. The second cause after the Fall was the avoidance of incontinence, but there neither incontinence nor concupiscence can exist. For they are equal to the angels of God, who are certainly free from corruption and intercourse.
Hence Augustine says: “God joined male and female in nuptial chastity for the propagation of the race, and showed that second marriages, which are permitted in each Testament, are lawful.” The Lord does not condemn the sevenfold marriage, nor does he say that she cannot be in the resurrection; he says only that “they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage.” This is in Cause 31, canon Deus.
That the resurrection will occur he proves from the fact that God, appearing to Moses in the bush, said: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” That is: God is not called the God of things that do not exist. “Abraham,” however, names the person, that is, the soul together with the body. Therefore, if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not to rise, God would not have said that he was their God.
They marveled at his answer. Those Sadducees believed that the soul perished with the body. If that were true, God would not have said, “I am,” but, “I was the God of Abraham.” Because they lived in the soul and in hope of the resurrection of their bodies, however, he said: “I am the God of Abraham,” and so forth.
There are also other authorities in the Prophets openly treating of the resurrection. But because those Sadducees did not accept the Prophets and accepted only the five books of Moses, he adduced testimony from those books. And because the Pharisees held the contrary opinion, which was sound as against the Sadducees, after the Sadducees had been confounded so that they could not answer him further, one of the Pharisees said, as Luke reports: “Master, you have spoken well.”
§ VI
After Jesus had spoken the parable of the vineyard against them, the Pharisees went away and took counsel to catch Jesus in his speech, so that from it they might accuse him and hand him over into the governor’s hands. Matthew, Mark, and Luke relate this, Luke more openly.
“Herodians” means Herod’s soldiers who favored the right of the empire, or perhaps certain Jews who held that tribute should be paid to the Roman emperor, although many others held the contrary because the Jews themselves gave tithes and first fruits to God. The Pharisees therefore sent their disciples together with those Herodians. The Pharisees themselves did not wish to approach, lest their malice be detected. For Jesus had frequently discovered that they were his rivals, and this was known to the crowds. If his disciples were refuted by him, it would be imputed less to the Pharisees themselves because the disciples were simple men.
To deceive him more successfully and induce him to open his heart more plainly and simply, the disciples began by displaying goodwill toward him and praising him for a threefold truth. Concerning truth of life, they said: “Master, we know that you are truthful.” Concerning truth of doctrine, they added: “You teach the way of God in truth.” Concerning truth of justice, they said, without accepting persons: “You have no concern for anyone,” for which another evangelist says: “You do not regard the face of a human being, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to give the tribute to Caesar or not?” Luke says “tribute” for what Matthew calls “tax,” and it is the same thing.
They had thought and agreed among themselves in this way: Either he will be silent or he will answer. If he is silent, we shall call him ignorant because he does not know how to answer the questions proposed to him. Therefore, lest he be marked by ignorance, he will not be silent. If he answers, he must say one of two things: either it must be given, or it must not be paid.
If he affirms that it must be given, this will make him hateful to the people, and he will appear to speak against the Law, which commands tithes to be given and offerings to be offered to God, not a tax to a human being. But if he says it must not be given, the Herodians present there, zealous for the honor and advantage of the Roman Empire, will immediately seize him and hand him over to the governor.
Hence the evangelist says that Jesus, knowing their wickedness, said: “Why do you tempt me, hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tax.” When they offered him a denarius, Jesus said: “Whose image and inscription is this?” When they answered, “Caesar’s,” Jesus replied: “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” namely tribute or tax to the emperor, “and to God what belongs to God,” namely tithes, sacrifices, and offerings. They could not catch him in his word, because he did not deny that tribute must be given to Caesar and said that tithes and offerings must be offered to God. They therefore remained confounded.
On another occasion a certain young man asked Jesus a question. Luke calls him a ruler, and Mark relates that he approached on the road, knelt before him, and said, as Matthew testifies: “Good Master, what good thing shall I do to have eternal life?” Christ answered him, according to Luke: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”
If this is understood of essential goodness, or goodness by essence, then not only is no human being good by essence, but neither is an angel—that is, no one’s goodness is his essence—except God. It is as though Christ said: Since you call me good absolutely, you confess that I am God.
If it is understood of accidental goodness, such as exists in a creature and excludes sin, then “no one” means that no man or woman is good if merely human, except God—that is, Christ Jesus, man and God. For according to the Apostle in Romans 3, all sinned in Adam, infected with original sin, except Christ.
Christ added: “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” The young man asked: “Which?” Perhaps he said this because there are many commandments in the Old Law, ceremonial and others. But Christ declared that he was speaking of the moral commandments. Hence he did not state them all, but gave some from the Decalogue by way of example, saying: “You shall not kill,” and so forth.
When the young man said, “All these I have kept from my youth,” Jesus, hearing this, looked upon him and loved him, as Mark testifies, and said: “One thing is still lacking to you. If you wish to be perfect, go, sell everything you possess and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Poverty disposes one toward perfection as an instrument, but perfection consists in the perfect imitation of Christ through obedience, humility, and charity.
Hearing this, the young man became sorrowful and went away grieving, according to Mark, because he was rich and had many possessions. Then Christ said to the disciples: “How difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
§ VII
When the feast of the Dedication was being celebrated at Jerusalem—that is, the feast of the purification or reconciliation of the Temple under Judas Maccabeus, after the Temple had been profaned by King Antiochus—which took place in the month of December, it was winter. As Jesus walked in Solomon’s porch, he was surrounded by Jews who questioned him, not in order to know the truth, but to calumniate and accuse him. They surrounded him so that no way of escape would lie open to him.
They said: “How long do you take away our soul?”—that is, keep our minds in suspense by not speaking openly. If you are our Messiah, tell us. They therefore say: “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” He answered them, as John relates: “I speak to you, and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name bear testimony concerning me.” It is as though he said: I need not say openly, “I am the Christ,” because my miraculous works—which are a greater and more effective argument than words for proving the truth of my faith and teaching—show it. I do the works that the Prophets foretold the Messiah would do and that cannot be done except by God.
“But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep,” that is, among the predestined and those who live rightly. He proves this through a property of his sheep that they did not possess: “My sheep hear my voice,” that is, my doctrine, and obey it. “And I know them,” approving and accepting their works and infusing grace, “and they follow me” by imitating my footsteps.
From this they attain the greatest reward, “because I give them eternal life.” This life will be perpetual for them, free from every penalty and misery, and not full of wretchedness like the life of the reprobate in hell. Hence he adds: “They shall not perish forever,” that is, they shall not go to eternal perdition.
The reason is that they are under my protection. No being, whatever creature it may be, is so powerful that it can seize—that is, take—them from my hand, that is, my power. “For what the Father gave me is greater than all things.” He gave me to be one with him and to have one power with him, which is greatest of all. Just as no one can withdraw anything from the Father’s power or will, since he is almighty, so no one can withdraw anything from mine, since my power is one with his. Christ expresses this more fully by saying: “I and the Father are one.”
In saying “one,” he shows unity of substance, against Arius, who posited diversity of substance in the divine persons and was therefore condemned by the Church. What he adds, “are,” indicates plurality of persons in the divine nature, against another heresiarch, Sabellius, who said that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one person, although called at one time by one of their names and at another time by another.
But the Jews, unable with their bleary eyes to bear so great a light of truth, took up stones to cast at Christ. The most kindly Christ showed that they were moved unreasonably, saying: “I have shown you many good works from my Father,” that is, works done in the name of him whom you call your God. “For which of these works do you stone me?”—that is, wish to stone me. It is as though he said: Good works do not merit punishment, but recompense and glory.
They said to him: “We do not stone you for a good work.” For they could not deny that he had done many good works and miracles for them, since these had been done openly, “but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
Blasphemy occurs when something proper to God is attributed to a creature. Because the Jews believed, as they still believe, that Jesus was a mere human being and not the incarnate Son of God, they said that he blasphemed when he called himself God, as indeed he was.
But Jesus tempered his discourse, showing from the Scriptures that even human beings are called gods because of sanctity. He therefore says: “Is it not written in your law”—that is, in the Psalms—“I said: You are gods”? If Scripture called those to whom the word of God came “gods,” namely gods by adoption, and Scripture cannot be dissolved—that is, cannot fail to be fulfilled and verified—then supply: much more can the one “whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world,” that is, begot holy and appointed to be incarnate, be called God.
This is true, although in one way of Christ and in another of human beings. Christ is God and the Son of God by nature and essence; holy human beings are gods by grace and adoption.
He adds: “If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do, even if you do not wish to believe me”—namely, my words—“believe the works, so that you may know that the Father is in me and I in the Father,” that is, that I am equal to the Father in all things.
When they sought to apprehend him, he went out from their hands, either making himself invisible to them or restraining their power to capture him.
§ VIII. On Christ’s Teaching in the Replies He Made to the Jews’ Insulting Words and Deeds
When Christ said to them, “Which of you will convict me of sin?” it is as though he said: No one can reprove me for sin, because he had none, either original or actual. Origen says here that no one could have spoken this word except the Lord himself. Gregory says in a homily: “Consider the Lord’s gentleness. He does not disdain to show by reason that he is not a sinner, although by the power of his divinity he could justify sinners.”
As Gratian says in Cause 2, Question 7, § Ecce, after canon Testes, Christ, through the perfection of humility and not through the rigor of law, admitted the Jews to accuse him. For according to the rigor of law, criminals and the infamous, such as those Jews, are not to be admitted to accuse religious persons. Hence an example is given to prelates that, if they wish, they may admit such people to reprove them, but they are not bound to do so.
“If I speak the truth to you, why do you not believe me?” Everyone ought to believe the truth. Since I speak the truth to you, asserting that I am the Son of God, and you cannot convict me of a lie in this or of any sin, why do you not believe me? This proceeds only from the fact that you are not from God, that is, born through grace, even though by nature you were created by him and from him. “For he who is from God hears the words of God,” as a good son hears his father’s words.
Gregory says in a homily: Let each person ask himself whether he receives the words of God with the ear of the heart, and he will understand whence he is. Some do not deign to receive God’s commandments even with the bodily ear. Some receive God’s words with the bodily ear but embrace them with no desire of the heart. Others willingly receive God’s words so that they are even moved to tears, but after the time of tears they return to wickedness. These certainly do not hear God’s words, because they scorn to exercise them in deed.
Hence he adds: “Therefore you do not hear, because you are not from God,” namely, sons through grace.
To these words the Jews replied insultingly: “Do we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” That is: When we say these things, do we not speak rightly and truly? From this it is shown that they had often uttered such insulting words. Yet it is not recorded elsewhere in the Gospel that they said he was a Samaritan. According to Theophylact, this shows that Jesus did and suffered many things that were not written.
They call him a Samaritan as though a heretic and an excommunicate. For the Samaritans erred in many things and did not believe that the future age and future judgment would come. Hence the Jews did not associate with them. They said he had a demon because they thought he cast out demons in belzebub, or because he revealed their secrets, or because he spoke lofty things beyond their understanding.
Of the two charges made against him, Christ denied one: that he had a demon. By remaining silent about the other he seems to have confessed that he was a Samaritan. This is in Extra, title On Presumptions, canon Nonne. He was a Samaritan not by nation or morals, but by interpretation. For “Samaritan” is interpreted “guardian,” and he, according to his divinity, guards just as he created.
Answering the insults made against him, Jesus therefore says: “I do not have a demon.” Gregory says: Behold, Christ receives injuries but does not reply with insulting words. He could have said to them, and truly, “You have a demon,” but he did not do so. What else is indicated to us by this except that, when we receive insults falsely from our neighbors, we should remain silent even about their true evils, lest the ministry of just correction be turned into the vengeance of fury?
Chrysostom says: Notice that where it was fitting to teach and restrain their pride, Jesus was severe in speaking; but where it was fitting for him to endure reproach, he used great gentleness. In this he instructs us to learn to avenge the things that pertain to God, but to despise those that pertain to ourselves, namely reproaches.
After such an insult, he said only this concerning his glory: “But I honor my Father.” That is: Lest I seem arrogant to you, I have one whom I honor. Theophylact says that he honored the Father by avenging him and not tolerating those murderers and liars to call themselves truthful sons of God. Augustine says that Christ alone most truly honored the Father. One acting by things not honored by God does not honor God.
“And you have dishonored me.” It is as though he said: I do what I ought, but you do not do what you ought. According to Origen, this applies not only to those Jews but to all who act unjustly against justice, wisdom, truth, and the like, because Christ is justice, truth, and wisdom.
“I do not seek my own glory.” It is as though he said: I have spoken these things to you from the honor I bear toward the Father, and because of this you dishonor me with your insults. Yet I have no concern for this insult. You must pay the penalties to him for whose sake I hear these things. Therefore he adds: “There is one who seeks and judges.”
Origen says that God seeks Christ’s glory in each person who receives him, a glory that he finds in those who act according to the causes of virtue implanted in them. Where he does not find it, however, he judges—that is, punishes—those in whom he does not find the Son’s glory.
According to Augustine, “There is one,” namely my Father, “who seeks” my glory “and judges,” that is, discerns between your glory, which is vain, and mine, which is true. God the Father also discerns Christ’s glory insofar as Christ is the God-man from the glory even of holy human beings, because Christ’s glory is incomprehensibly greater.
When the perversity of the wicked increases, preaching ought not merely to remain unbroken but to increase, whenever it profits some people. This is in Distinction 43, canon Scimus. Hence, after the Jews had called Christ a demoniac, he bestowed the benefits of his preaching more abundantly, saying: “Amen, amen, I say to you.”
Here note that, according to some, “amen” is an oath. This is in Extra, title On Oaths, canon Et si Christus. According to others it is not an oath but a simple affirmation of speech. It is a Hebrew word and is interpreted “so it is,” or, according to Jerome, “truly” or “faithfully.” When the other evangelists use this expression they place it only once, but John doubles it as “Amen, amen,” because the other evangelists commonly hand down matters about Christ pertaining to his humanity, which are better known, whereas John hands down those pertaining to his divinity, which are less known and therefore require a greater affirmation. It is as though he said: Truly, truly.
“If anyone keeps my word, he will not see death forever.” “If anyone” shows rarity. “Keeps my word” means firmly preserves my doctrine and fulfills it to the end. “He will not see” means he will not experience “death forever,” that is, eternal damnation. This certainly is true death, which forever separates the soul from God, its life. This temporal death should rather be called a migration.
The Jews therefore said: “Now we know that you have a demon.” Gregory says: Just as it is necessary that the good become better even through insults, so the reprobate always become worse through a benefit. They thought he had said these things at a demon’s prompting, understanding of bodily death what he had said of spiritual death. Hence they say: “Abraham died, and the Prophets, and you say, ‘If anyone,’” and so forth. “Are you greater than our father Abraham?”
Again they flee to vainglorious recognition, naming Abraham their father and regarding Christ as less than Abraham. They speak falsely when they say that he has a demon, and also when they add that Abraham and the Prophets died the death of which he had spoken to them, namely eternal death. Because Abraham and the Prophets preserved the word of God made to them, they therefore live forever.
“Whom do you make yourself to be?” they ask. That is, according to Theophylact: You, worthy of no glory, a carpenter’s son, secretly appropriate glory to yourself in Galilee. Or, according to Bede: Of what merit or dignity do you wish to be believed? But Origen says this was the utterance of blind people, since Jesus did not make himself what he is, but received it from the Father.
Jesus therefore answered: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.” The Jews suspected that he spoke this from temporal glory, and so he answered them about present glory. By these words, Bede says, he shows that the glory of the present life is nothing. Jesus refers his glory to the Father, from whom he is, and therefore adds: “It is my Father who glorifies me.”
Alcuin says that the Father glorified the Son when at the time of the Baptism and on the mountain at the Transfiguration a voice was made to him before the crowds, when the time of the Passion drew near, and when after the Passion the Father raised him and placed him at his right hand. But the Son too glorified the Father by manifesting him. Hence he said: “I have glorified you upon the earth.”
Jesus added: “He whom you say is your God.” He wished to show them that they knew him neither as Father nor as God. For if they knew the Father, they would also venerate his Son. They also scorned God when they plotted against Christ a homicide prohibited in his law.
“And you have not known him.” Alcuin explains: It is as though he said: You carnally call him your God, serve him for temporal things, and have not known him as he must be understood. You do not know how to serve him spiritually. This is against certain heretics who said that Christ’s Father was not the God proclaimed in the Old Testament. Christ, however, calls his Father the one whom they called their God. Yet they did not know him, because if they had known him they would have received his Son.
“But I,” he adds, “know him.” According to Augustine, this could have seemed arrogance to those judging according to the flesh, but arrogance should not be avoided in such a way that truth is abandoned. This is in Cause 22, Question 2, canon Non ita. He therefore says: “I know him, and if I said that I do not know him, I would be like you, a liar”—for you say you know him and do not.
The greatest demonstration that he was sent by him is his saying, “But I know him,” possessing knowledge of him naturally. According to Theophylact: As I am, so is the Father, and therefore, since I know myself, I know him. He gives an indication that he knows him by adding: “And I keep his word,” that is, his commandments.
Some understand this as “the account of his substance,” because the account of the Father’s and the Son’s substance is the same; therefore I know the Father. For and is taken in place of because, and the sense is: Because I keep his word. Augustine says that he spoke the Father’s word as Son, and he himself was the Father’s Word who spoke to human beings.
Because they had said, “Are you greater than our father Abraham?”, he shows that he is greater by adding: “Abraham your father exulted that he might see my day.” That is: He regarded my day as desirable and full of gladness, not as the day of someone insignificant or fortuitous, according to Theophylact.
Augustine says: He did not fear, but exulted that he might see it; believing, he exulted by hoping, so that he might see by understanding. It is uncertain whether Christ spoke of the Lord’s day on which he was to come in the flesh, or of the Lord’s day that knows neither rising nor setting—that is, the eternal nativity according to the divinity. But I do not doubt that Abraham knew the whole.
He knew of the Incarnation when he said to his steward, “Place your hand beneath my thigh,” and so forth, in Genesis 24. According to Gregory, he saw the Lord’s day according to the divinity when in a figure of the supreme Trinity he received three angels as guests, in Genesis 18. Or, according to Chrysostom, he saw it as regards the day of the Passion in the offering of the ram and Isaac, in Genesis 22. Or, according to John Dominici, he saw it in Abraham’s sacrifice of the three-year-old goat, heifer, and ram, and the turtledove and dove, in Genesis 14 [read: Genesis 15].
“He saw and rejoiced.” Augustine says: What was the joy of Abraham’s heart? He saw the abiding Word, the Father’s splendor shining upon human minds, remaining God with the Father, yet at some time to come in the flesh without withdrawing from the Father’s bosom. The answer is: it was inexpressible.
But the carnal minds of the Jews who heard these things did not raise their minds above the flesh, since in him they considered the substance of flesh alone. Hence they say: “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” It is as though they said: Many courses of years have passed since Abraham died. How, then, did he see your day? Theophylact asks: Since Christ was then thirty-three years old, why did they not say forty?
But this question is superfluous, for they simply said what occurred to them. Or, according to others, they said “fifty” out of reverence for the Jubilee, which fell under that number. Or, according to others, because the Lord Jesus was so abstinent that he appeared much older than he was.
Jesus therefore said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you: before Abraham was made, I am.” According to Gregory, through this our kindly Redeemer removes us from looking upon his flesh and draws us toward contemplation of his divinity. Because divinity has neither past nor future time but always possesses being, he does not say, “Before Abraham was made, I was,” but, “I am,” according to “I am who am,” which God said to Moses.
Because Abraham is a creature, he did not say, “Before Abraham existed,” but, “Before Abraham was made.” Nor did he say, “I was made,” but, “I am,” for “in the beginning was the Word.”
The minds of the unbelievers, unable to bear these words of eternity because they could not understand them, sought to crush him. Hence it is said: “The Jews took up stones to cast at him.” Augustine says: Where could such hardness run except to stones like itself? Since there were no stones in the Temple, it appears sufficiently that they had carried them there when they saw him speaking from the beginning.
Because they did not receive correction, he left them. Hence it follows: “But Jesus hid himself.” He did not hide under a wall, behind a wall, or in a little house, but, according to Augustine, made himself invisible to those lying in wait by heavenly power and passed through their midst out of the Temple. Patience was to be commended rather than power displayed by killing them with a single nod. By this example it is shown that, even when we can resist, we should humbly turn aside from the anger of the proud.
§ IX
After Jesus absolved the adulteress from the charge, saying, “Neither will I condemn you; go,” and so forth, lest anyone doubt whether the one whom they saw to be a true human being could forgive sins, he deigns, as Alcuin says, to demonstrate more openly the power of his divinity, saying: “I am the light of the world.”
He is not the natural light of the sun, as the Manichaeans said. That light, like all other things, was made by him according to his divinity, in accordance with the saying, “All things were made through the Word.” Rather, he is spiritual light.
Nor, as Bede says, does he say, “I am the light of the angels” or “of heaven,” but “the light of the world,” that is, of human beings dwelling in darkness. Nor is he the light that is the habit of grace or glory within us; he is the true light that enlightens every person coming into this world, whether with the natural light of the intellect, the light of grace, or the light of glory. No one is enlightened from elsewhere than from him, who causes all illumination.
Or he is called the light of the world exemplarily, because by his example his life teaches everyone to live perfectly and rationally. Whoever imitates that life consequently escapes the greatest evil and attains every good.
Hence he adds: “He who follows me,” imitating my acts with the feet of affections and actions, “does not walk in the darkness” of errors, sins, and finally hell, “but shall have the light of life,” namely the light of glory, where there is true, unfailing life.
Answering him, the Jews calumniated him for boasting and falsehood, saying: “You bear testimony concerning yourself.” To praise oneself for one’s own glory certainly belongs to boasting and vainglory. But to praise oneself for God’s glory and one’s neighbors’ benefit is lawful and charitable, not boasting, as Job, David, Paul, and others did. Thus God praises himself, so that when his virtues are known to us we may thereby advance in love for him.
“Your testimony is not true.” That is: You ought not to be believed, because you alone testify concerning yourself. Yet, as Alcuin says, before he appeared in the flesh he had sent ahead many witnesses, namely the Prophets, who foretold his sacraments and testified many things concerning him.
Jesus therefore overturns what they say, replying: “Even if I bear testimony concerning myself, my testimony is true.” He said this according to the supposition of those who thought him a mere human being. He immediately supplies the cause: “Because I know whence I came and where I go.” That is: I am from God and am God, the Son of God. He does not say this openly, because he intersperses humble things among lofty ones. God himself, who cannot lie, is a witness worthy of faith concerning himself.
Augustine says: The testimony of light is true, whether it shows itself or other things. A prophet spoke true testimony, but whence would he have it unless he drew from the fountain of truth? Jesus is therefore fit to bear testimony concerning himself, saying: “Because I know whence I came and where I go.”
Augustine says that he wished the Father to be understood, for the Son gave glory to the Father by whom he was sent. How much more, then, ought a human being to glorify the one by whom he was created? He came when he was incarnate; he went to the Father when, after suffering and rising, he ascended into heaven. This journey belonged to the assumed humanity, not to his divinity, which is everywhere. Hence, in coming, he did not depart from the Father, nor, in going to the Father, did he leave us.
Jesus adds: “But you do not know whence I come or where I go.” Augustine explains: They saw a human being and did not believe him God. Just as this sun illuminates the face both of one who sees and of a blind person, although the one who has sight sees it and the blind person does not, so God’s Wisdom and Word is present everywhere, even in unbelievers, who nevertheless do not see him because of blindness of heart—that is, do not know him—and in believers, who see by believing in him.
“You judge according to the flesh.” When you say, “You bear testimony concerning yourself,” and so forth, it is as though he said: Because you think that I am flesh alone and not God in the flesh, you judge fallibly, and I seem arrogant to you in bearing testimony concerning myself.
“I judge no one,” namely according to the flesh, that is, by exterior things alone. For just as living according to the flesh is unjust, so too is judging according to the flesh, according to Chrysostom, but one judges according to the truth of the matter. Or, “I judge no one” means no one now. He does not deny that judgment will be carried out by him, but that it is to be rendered now.
“And if I judge, my judgment is true.” That is: If I judged now, I would justly condemn you, but now is not the time of judgment. The judgment will be true, “because I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me.” He shows that he alone will not condemn, but the Father also. Yet he speaks these things according to their supposition, for they did not think that he was a Son worthy of faith unless he assumed the Father’s testimony.
Christ will therefore judge according to his divinity together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, whose divinity is one, by condemning the reprobate and rewarding and glorifying the elect. But insofar as he is man he is said to judge alone, according to John’s saying: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” He alone, appearing in the humanity he assumed, will be seen by all, good and evil.
Augustine says: Blush here, Sabellian, because he did not say, “I am the Father, and I myself am the Son,” but, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” Distinguish your understanding: recognize that the Father is Father and the Son is Son—one person and another person. But do not say, as arrius does, that the Father is greater and the Son less. For there is one substance of the three persons, one coeternity, perfect equality.
Since he had already spoken of judgment, he now adds concerning testimony: “And in your law,” that is, the law given to you by God, “it is written that the testimony of two human beings is true,” that is, is held as true in judgment. For it is said in Cause 2, Question 4, § 1: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand,” that is, shall be held true and firm.
According to Alcuin, this can be understood as follows: If your law approves the testimony of two people who can be deceived and testify falsely, for what reason do you not call the testimony of me and my Father true, although it is firm with supreme stability?
Or, according to Augustine, since two people can lie, as was evident in Susanna, and the whole people lied before Christ, how will every word stand in the mouth of two or three unless the Trinity is commended mystically in this manner, in whom there is the perpetual stability of truth?
“I am one who bears testimony concerning myself,” not only through words, saying, “I and the Father are one,” and in other places, but also through miraculous works, as he himself says: “The works that I do in my Father’s name bear testimony concerning me,” John 10. “And the Father who sent me bears testimony concerning me,” when he said through the Psalm: “The Lord said to me: You are my Son,” and so forth, and at the Baptism and Transfiguration: “You are my beloved Son.”
The Jews said: “Where is your father?” That is: We see you alone, yet you say the Father is with you. We do not see him; therefore show him to us.
Theophilus says that some think this was said to reproach and insult him, as one born from fornication and ignorant of his progenitor, or as one born from a base and ignoble father—namely Joseph, as he was thought to be. It is as though they said: Your father is unknown and ignoble; why, then, do you bring him before us so frequently?
Because they asked not as people wishing to know the truth but as people tempting him, he did not answer the proposed question. Instead he said: “You know neither me nor my Father.” It is as though he said: You do not ask about me but about the Father, as though you had now examined me completely, and as though all that is in me were what you see, namely the humanity alone.
Therefore, because you do not know me according to the deity, I do not show the Father to you. You think me a mere human being and therefore also seek my carnal father. But because I am one thing according to what you see and another according to what you do not see, and because I speak of my hidden Father, first know me, who am hidden, and afterward you will know my Father.
Hence he adds: “If you knew me, perhaps you would also know my Father.” Augustine says that this word “perhaps,” although it seems a word of doubt, is spoken by way of rebuke. It is like becoming indignant at your slave and saying: Do you despise me? Consider that perhaps I am your master. Thus the Lord rebukes unbelievers by seeming to doubt when he says, “And perhaps you would know my Father.”
Origen says: Someone may ask how this is true: “If you knew me,” and so forth—that is, you do not know me, and therefore you do not know my Father—when elsewhere he said to the Jews: “You know me,” in John 7. One must reply that our Savior sometimes speaks of himself as a human being. He spoke in this way when he said elsewhere, “And you know me,” for they knew that he was born of Mary. At other times he speaks of himself according to the divine nature, as he does here when he says, “If you knew me.”
What is it to say, “If you knew me,” and so forth, except, “I and the Father are one”? For when you see someone like another, it is everyday speech to say, “If you have seen this person, you have seen that one,” because of the likeness. The Lord gave such an answer here: “If you knew me,” and so forth. This is not because the Father is the Son, but because the Son is like the Father.
Let the Arian blush here. For if, according to him, the Son is a creature, how does one who knows a creature know God? One who knows a created substance does not thereby know the divine substance. Since, therefore, one who knows the Son also knows the Father, it is evident that the Son is consubstantial with the Father.
Or, according to Origen, a person is said to know someone when joined to him, just as it is said of Adam that he knew his wife when he was joined to her. Therefore, if one who adheres to God is one spirit and knows God, then the Pharisees, who were not joined to God by grace, knew neither Father nor Son.
He spoke these things in the treasury. This is a place in the Temple, namely in the Temple’s porch, in which riches were kept. “And no one apprehended him.” That is: They wished to seize him, but he did not permit it, because his hour had not yet come.
This was not an hour of fatal necessity, under which fate some say Christ was born. How could he have a fate—that is, a constellation compelling him to live and die in such a way—through whom heaven and the stars were made? The Creator is not subject to a creature. Therefore, his hour had not come, not the hour when he would be compelled to die, but when he would deign to be killed.
§ X
Because the evangelists had said immediately beforehand that no one apprehended Jesus because his hour had not yet come, Jesus now speaks about his Passion, showing that it lay not under necessity but within his power.
Jesus therefore said to them again: “I go.” As Bede says, the things narrated here could have occurred at the same time and place, or in different places and times. “I go,” namely to the Father, going through death and afterward the Resurrection to ascend into heaven; I am not compelled by fate or others, but offer myself willingly according to Isaiah 53: “He was offered because he himself willed it.” Therefore he says, “I go.”
“And you shall seek me.” Origen says that Jesus is sought in two ways. Those seeking him rightly and with loving desire, desiring virtues and salvation, find him and go where he is, namely to glory and peace. Others seek him from hatred and in the act of unjust persecution, as did the Jews to whom he spoke. These do not find salvation, but eternal death. Hence he says to them: “You shall die in your sin,” namely the sin of perfidy and obstinacy.
“And where I go, you cannot come.” He speaks to those whom he foresaw would remain in unbelief. They certainly could not go to glory because they refused to do that by which it is reached, namely to believe rightly.
Understanding carnally, the Jews said: “Will he kill himself, because he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?” Augustine says: Foolish words. For if he had killed himself, were they not also going to die sometime and go to another age where he would be?
But Origen says that the Jews had many things handed down to them concerning Christ, either from apocryphal writings or the testimonies of the Prophets, not only about his nativity but also about his death and that he must pass from this world. Hence they spoke this insultingly not according to the simple sense, but according to some Jewish tradition concerning Christ that had come to them, giving him no glory.
The Lord speaks to those who savored earthly things as though to earthly people, saying: “You are from below,” that is, you savor the earth and have your heart fixed on earthly things. It is therefore no wonder that, as carnal people understanding nothing spiritual, you think such things. “I am from above,” that is, from the Father himself, above whom nothing is higher, according to Augustine.
“You are of this world; I am not of this world.” How indeed was he of the world according to the divinity through whom the world was made and who existed before the world? They, however, were of the world because they were created after the world was made, or because of the worldly and carnal thoughts they possessed, which Jesus did not possess. It is as though he said, according to Theophilus: Since I desire nothing earthly or worldly, how would I come to such insanity as to kill myself?
But the heretic appollinaris, understanding this badly, said that Christ’s body was not of this world but that he had brought it from heaven, from heavenly matter, and had drawn it through the Virgin as through the channel of a pipe.
Rather, this is how it must be understood: “I am not of this world,” that is, not among you who care for and love worldly things. Christ also said of his disciples in John 17: “They are not of the world,” because they did not love it inordinately.
Since, according to Augustine, the mind is to be said to be where it loves rather than where it animates, according to Origen the one who loves earthly things and places his end in them is of this world, while the one who loves heavenly things is not of this world. Christ did the latter perfectly and continually, and therefore says that he is not of this world.
Or, according to Augustine, he alone was not of this world because he contracted or possessed no sin. Or because in Christ, insofar as he is the Son of God, the whole world exists in the wisdom of the Father, differing from the material world as much as the account of the whole world, stripped of every material thing, differs from the material world. Christ’s soul therefore says, “I am not of this world,” because it dwells in that world, namely by seeing clearly and continually.
Because Jesus knew that some of his hearers were to be converted, he added: “Therefore I said to you that you shall die in your sins.” He did not say this simply and absolutely, but with a condition understood: “If you do not believe that I am, you shall die,” and so forth.
Chrysostom says: Because he added nothing, what he commended is very great. For the Lord spoke in the same way to Moses: “I am who am,” as though other things were not. Whatever its excellence may be, if it is mutable it is not true, for true being is not where there is both being and nonbeing. Examine the mutability of things and you will find “was” and “will be.” Think of God and you will find “is,” where past and future cannot exist. Here, therefore, he seems to have said nothing else than: “Unless you believe that I am,” that is, I am God.
Augustine says: Thanks be to God that he said, “Unless you believe that I am”; he did not say, “Unless you comprehend.” For who could comprehend this? Thus one who does not believe in Christ dies in his sins.
One does not believe who works things contrary to Christ, for Christ is wisdom, justice, and every other virtue. Therefore, according to Origen, one who does not act according to virtue does not believe in Christ, and hence dies in his sins.
The Jews then asked: “Who are you?” They may have spoken contemptuously, as though to say: How great do you make yourself, that you threaten, “Unless you believe,” and so forth? Are you not Joseph’s son? Or interrogatively: Who are you, since it is necessary to believe that you are, yet you have not said what you are?
Jesus, knowing that some, though not all, would believe, expressed for their sake the truth of his divinity, saying: “The beginning, who also speak to you”: the one beginning of all created things together with the Father and the Holy Spirit; together with the Father, the beginning of the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit proceeds from both, insofar as he is God; and insofar as he is man, the exemplary beginning of every grace, wisdom, and virtue.
I, who have been incarnate, speak to you in the humanity I assumed for your benefit. Having become humble for your sake, I descend to these words. Believe, therefore, that I am the beginning, for so that you may believe this, I not only am the beginning, but also speak to you. For if the beginning, as he is, remained with the Father, he would not have taken a form. But how would they believe him, since infirm hearts could not hear an intelligible word without a sensible voice?
Or, according to Chrysostom, one should consider the madness of the Jews, who after so long a time, so many signs, and so much teaching ask Christ, “Who are you?” What does Christ reply? “The beginning, who also speak to you.” That is: You are unworthy to hear my words, much less that I should tell you who I am. You speak all things by way of temptation, and for all these things I can accuse and punish you.
Hence it follows: “I have many things to judge concerning you.” He speaks not of a present but of a future judgment. Therefore, I will be true in judgment, because I am Truth, the Son of the truthful one. Hence he adds: “He who sent me,” namely the Father, “is true.”
Augustine says: The Father is true not by participating in truth but by generating Truth. Are we indeed going to say that Truth is more than the truthful one? If we said this, we would begin to call the Son greater than the Father.
According to Chrysostom, Christ says these things because, after hearing so many insults, he does not punish them—not because of weakness or because he does not know their thoughts and insults. Or, according to Chrysostom: He sent me not to judge the world but to save the world. Since the Father is truthful, accordingly I now judge no one; rather, the things I speak are for salvation, not for judgment.
Hence it follows: “And the things I have heard from him, these I speak in the world.” Alcuin says that to hear from the Father is the same as to be from the Father, because he has hearing from the one from whom he also has essence. Augustine says: The Son, equal to the Father, gives glory to the Father. It is as though he said: Give glory to him whose Son I am; how are you proud against him whose servant you are?
When he said, “He who sent me is true,” they did not understand of whom he spoke. Therefore the evangelist adds: “And they did not know that he called God his Father.” They did not have open eyes by which they might understand the equality of Father and Son.
Yet Jesus saw that some present there would believe in him after his Resurrection, and therefore said for their sake: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man from the earth,” namely through the Passion of the cross, “then you shall know that I am, and I do nothing of myself.” For many were afterward converted and knew his divinity.
Augustine says that he speaks this so that no one would despair, however great the crime of which he is guiltily conscious, since pardon and knowledge of the deity were granted to those who killed Christ.
Or, according to Chrysostom, Christ had not converted them by teaching many things and performing signs, so he speaks of what remains, the cross: “When you have lifted up,” and so forth. It is as though he said: You think that you will then be separated from me above all, when you kill me. But I say that then, through the grace of the signs, the Resurrection, and your captivity, you will especially know that I am the Christ, the Son of God, and am not contrary to him.
For this reason he adds: “I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, so I speak.” Through this he manifests the identity of substance and the fact that he says nothing outside the Father’s understanding. According to Augustine, it is as though he said: The Son is God from the Father; I am not from myself.
The Father spoke incorporeally to the Son because the Father begot the Son incorporeally. He did not teach him as though he had begotten him untaught. Rather, to have taught him is to have begotten him knowing. For if the nature of truth is simple, to know is the same thing for the Son as to be.
Do not imagine, therefore, that the Father speaks to the Son like two human beings, as a father might speak to his son who is a mere man. What words would be spoken to the one Word? Just as God speaks without sound in our hearts, so he speaks to his Son. As by begetting he gave him to be, so he gave him to know.
It follows: “He who sent me is with me.” The first statement is one of diminution: insofar as he was made man, he was sent. The second is one of deity: “He is with me.” “And he has not left me alone,” for when he sent the Son into the world the Father was not absent from it, he who says, “I fill heaven and earth.”
“Because I always do the things pleasing to him.” He does them together with the Father, not from some beginning but without beginning and without end. Or, according to Chrysostom, he says this because they said he was not from God since he broke the Sabbath. He shows that this was pleasing to the Father.
Many believed in him as he spoke these things. They believed, but not as they ought: simply, as though rejoicing and resting in the humility of the words, who had not been persuaded by lofty teaching.
§ XI. On Jesus’s Persuasion of the Believers to Persevere, and His Stern Rebuke of the Faithless Jews
Jesus therefore said, as John reports, to the Jews who had believed in him: “If you remain in my word.” What is it to remain in Christ’s word or in the Lord’s words except to yield to no temptations? Augustine says: If there is toil, consider the reward.
It follows: “You shall know the truth.” That is: Because you are now believers, by remaining you will become seers. What is faith except to believe what you do not see? Therefore, if one perseveres in those things which are believed, one will attain to that which is seen, namely that they may contemplate Truth itself not through sounding words but through shining light. Truth is immutable; it is the bread of the mind; it refreshes and does not fail. Truth itself is the Word of God, and this Truth was clothed in flesh.
Or, according to Chrysostom, “You shall know the truth” means: you shall know me, who am Truth. All those Jewish things, namely the legal observances, were figures.
He shows what follows from this knowledge when he adds: “The truth shall free you.” That is: Even if Truth does not delight you, let freedom delight you. To be freed means to be made free, that is, to escape dangers and lack afflictions. Augustine asks: From what will Truth free us except death, corruption, and mutability?
The Jews answered him. Chrysostom says that those who had believed gave the answer written below, having become troubled and raging against him for saying these things as though they were slaves. Augustine, however, expounds this not of the believers but of other Jews who were in the crowd with them. Those unbelievers said: “We are Abraham’s seed and have never served anyone.” It is as though they said: Those who are of Abraham’s seed, as we are, are freeborn; therefore it was not fitting to call them slaves.
In saying, “We have never served,” they meant temporal servitude, but they speak falsely, since they had frequently been subjected to slavery. Joseph their father was sold as a slave. In Egypt they served Pharaoh. In the Promised Land they served many neighboring tyrants, as is evident throughout the Book of Judges; then Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, afterward the Persians and Medes; after that Antiochus, king of Syria; and at that very time they served the Romans. For why did they pay tribute to them?
But because Christ’s words were directed not toward vainglory but toward salvation, the Lord did not wish to show that they were slaves of human beings, as he could have done, but that they were slaves of sin, from whose most severe servitude God alone can rescue them.
This is what he says in answer: “Amen, amen, I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Augustine says that “amen” is a Hebrew word and is interpreted “true.” Yet neither the Greek nor Latin translator dared translate it, so that it might possess honor beneath the veil of secrecy—not that it might be bound, but lest it become cheap when laid bare. By its repetition he drives the point home and, as it were, awakens sleepers; he does not wish to be despised.
He says, “everyone who commits sin,” whether Jew or Greek, poor or rich, emperor or slave. When he says “everyone,” he excludes nothing. This is in Distinction 19, canon Si Romanorum.
He is the slave of sin, because whoever subjects himself to an evil desire places his neck beneath the lordship of iniquity. We contradict this lord when we struggle against the iniquity that captures us, violently resist habit, strike guilt through repentance, and wash away stains with tears. Gregory says in the Moralia: The more freely some people carry out the perverse things they desire, the more they are bound under its slavery.
Augustine says: He alone can free from sin who came without sin and was made a sacrifice for sin. This is in On Consecration, Distinction 4. No one takes away the sins of the world except Christ, who is the Lamb taking away the sins of the world, and so forth.
He adds: “The slave does not remain in the house forever,” because a sinner in slavery to sin dwells by merit neither in the house of the Church militant nor in the Church triumphant. Jerome says: One who is polluted by any stain of sin, namely mortal sin, cannot be said to belong to the Church or to be subject to Christ. This is in On Penance, Distinction 1, canon Ecclesia.
“The Son remains forever,” namely in the aforesaid house. According to Augustine, the Son, namely Christ, is body and head. He gave the price, his own blood, according to the Apostle’s saying: “You were bought at a great price.” Thus he freed us in power. Because this power remains in the sacraments, through receiving them devoutly we are freed by the Son from slavery to sin.
Hence he says: “Therefore, if the Son frees you, you shall be truly free”: not from barbarians but from the devil, not from captivity of the body but from the soul’s iniquity. The first freedom is to be without crimes, and this is imperfect in the world because the flesh lusts against the spirit. The second and perfect freedom will be in the fatherland.
Because the Jews had said that they were free because they were Abraham’s seed, he answers this: “I know that you are Abraham’s sons.” That is: I acknowledge that you are sons of Abraham by carnal origin, not by the heart’s faith. He therefore adds: “But you seek to kill me.” He adds this lest they say, “We have no sin.” Leaving aside reproof of their whole life, he brings forward the matter immediately at hand, which they still wished to do.
Gradually he removed them from that kinship, instructing them to savor great things. For just as freedom and slavery arise from works, so does kinship.
Lest they say, “We do this justly,” he removes this objection by stating its cause: “Because my word does not take hold in you,” that is, does not take hold of your heart because it is not received by your heart. Thus the word of God is like a hook to the faithful: it takes hold when it is taken hold of. According to Chrysostom, he also thereby shows the sublimity of his teachings.
And because they could say, “What if you speak from yourself?”, he excludes this by adding: “I speak what I have seen with the Father.”
For I possess not only the same substance but also the same truth as the Father. By “his Father” he wishes God to be understood. It is as though he said: I have seen Truth; I speak Truth, because I am Truth. Thus the Lord speaks the truth he saw with the Father. He saw himself and speaks himself, because he is the Father’s Truth.
Theophilus says: When you hear, “I speak what I have seen,” by no means understand bodily vision, but natural, true, and approved knowledge.
It follows: “And you do what you have seen with your father,” namely the devil, whose children they were by imitating his deeds. For whoever performs someone’s works is proved to be his child by imitation, not nature. This is in Gratian, On Penance, Distinction 1.
But they, understanding him to speak of a father of carnal kinship, answered: “Our father is Abraham.” That is: What are you going to say against Abraham? He seemed to them to be marking him out so that he might say something evil about Abraham and thus give them an occasion to do what they intended, namely kill him.
But Jesus cut off this very claim as false, replying: “If you are Abraham’s sons, do Abraham’s works.” He does not deny their origin, that they descended from Abraham’s seed, but condemns their deeds. According to Origen, he says “works” in the plural, not “work,” to indicate that they must imitate not only Abraham’s one work—what is said of him, that Abraham believed God—but also his other works, in order to be true sons of Abraham.
“But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you,” namely the truth that he is equal to the Father. For this reason the Jews sought to kill him. To show that he is not contrary to the Father, he adds: “Which I heard from God.” “To hear” is nothing other than to be from the Father.
He calls himself “man,” not “Son of God” or “Word,” because the Word does not die. “Abraham did not do this.” That is: In this you prove that you are not Abraham’s sons, because you do works contrary to Abraham’s.
Origen says: Although Christ had not been born in Abraham’s time, was there nevertheless some man who spoke the truth he had heard from God whom Abraham did not kill? And know that the spiritual advent of Jesus was at no time absent from the saints.
“You do the works of your father,” Jesus says. Chrysostom says that the Lord speaks this because he wishes to take away their superfluous glory in kinship and persuade them no longer to place hope of salvation in natural kinship but in that which is according to adoption. This prevented them from coming to Christ, because they thought their kinship with Abraham sufficient for salvation.
Because the Jews began somehow to recognize that the Lord was not speaking of generation according to the flesh but of the ordering of life, they answered: “We were not born of fornication.” Chrysostom says that it is the custom of the Scriptures to call it spiritual fornication when the soul is subjected like a prostitute to many false gods. It is as though they said: We are not idolaters; we have one Father, God, namely by worshiping him.
But Chrysostom asks: What are you saying? You claim to have God as Father and accuse Christ for saying this, as was stated above. Although many of them were born from fornication because they practiced unlawful intercourse, he does not rebuke them for this. He continues to insist instead that they are not from God, saying: “If God were your Father, you would certainly love me.”
Hilary says: He does not disapprove of true sons of God calling God their Father, but rebukes the Jews’ rash usurpation in presuming God to be their Father by the fact that they did not love him. When he said that those who called God their Father ought to love him because he had gone forth from God, he taught that the cause of love arises from the cause of birth.
Hence he says: “For I proceeded and came from God.” His procession pertains to incorporeal nativity, his coming to bodily birth from his mother. You call God Father; recognize me as at least your brother.
He teaches that his origin is not from himself when he adds: “For neither did I come from myself, but he sent me.” Mission includes both eternal procession from the Father and temporal procession.
Christ adds: “Why do you not understand my speech? Because you cannot hear my words.” Augustine says: They could not hear because they refused to be corrected by believing.
Because Christ had now excluded the Jews from kinship with Abraham and from divine kinship or sonship, he openly strikes them, saying: “You are from your father the devil,” not by nature but by imitation.
The Jews were not evil by nature, as though deriving origin from a race of darkness, as the Manichaean heresiarch said, namely that the devil and our flesh took origin from a certain evil nature, the prince of darkness. Gratian says in Cause 22, Question 2, § Item opponitur: They were Abraham’s sons in the flesh, but because they were not sons by imitation they are not reckoned among Abraham’s sons. Christ calls them sons of the devil not by birth but by imitation. The imitation of a work therefore takes precedence over the origin of the flesh.
“And you wish to do the desires of your father.” Behold why you are sons: you desire the same things as the devil, not because you were born from him. You seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth, just as the devil envied and killed the first parents.
“He,” Jesus says, “was a murderer from the beginning,” certainly in the first human being. Augustine says: He was not girded with iron, but sowed an evil word in the human being when he said, “You shall be as gods,” and so forth, and killed him. Therefore do not think that you are not a murderer when you give your brother evil counsel, for when you counsel your brother badly, you kill him. This is in On Penance, Distinction 1, canon Noli.
Because those Jews themselves also frequently said of Christ that he was not from God, he shows from this falsehood that they are also from the devil, because, as he adds, “he did not stand in the truth.”
Augustine says: The devil is denied to have stood in the truth, not to have been created in the truth. For he was established in truth, but when he proudly presumed concerning himself, he became alien to it. He would not, however, have been established in truth if he had not possessed love of his Creator. This is in On Penance, Distinction 2, § Quod ergo, before canon Principium.
Augustine says in Book 11 of The City of God: The devil did not stand in truth and therefore was never blessed with the holy angels. Refusing to be subject to the Creator, he thereby became false and fallacious, because through pious subjection he refused to preserve what he is by nature, and by affecting proud exaltation he sought to feign what he is not.
Therefore, “he did not stand in the truth” must be understood to mean that he was in the truth, namely created in it, but did not remain in it. When John says in his canonical epistle, “The devil sins from the beginning,” the devil is not thought to have sinned from the beginning from which he was created, but from the beginning of sin—that is, sin had its beginning in him—not that he was created evil and sinning.
Why the devil does not cultivate truth is added: “Because truth is not in him.” According to Origen, this is because he entertains vain things and was seduced by himself. In this he is worse than others: others are deceived by him, but he showed himself to be the author of his own aforesaid deception.
Or, according to Origen, truth is said not to be in him because he was not a participant in Christ, who says, “I am the truth.” Or, according to Augustine, from this it is evident that he did not stand in truth although he had been in it, because truth is not now in him, but it would be if he had stood in it.
“When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own,” that is, from himself, “because he is a liar and its father.” This is not to be understood as the Manichaean heretics understood it, namely that the devil is a liar and the father of the devil. For the devil has no father other than God, who is his father because he created him, and created him good. Rather, as was said, the devil made himself a liar and the father of lying, that is, its inventor.
For he spoke a lie when he accused God before human beings, saying to Eve: “Because God envies you, he forbade the tree.” And according to Theophilus, he accused human beings before God when he said of Job: “Does Job worship God without cause?” and so forth, Job 1.
Ambrose says: “Brothers, beware of lying, because all who love a lie are sons of the devil.” A lie exists not only in words but also in simulated works. It is a lie to call oneself a Christian and not to do Christ’s works. This is in Cause 22, Question 5, canon Cavete.
The saying that the devil “speaks from his own” shows, according to Augustine, that each person sins only by his own will. On this, see Cause 15, Question 1, canon Non est.
“But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me.” Alcuin says: Because the Lord is Truth and the Son of Truth, he speaks God’s truth. But because the Jews were sons of the devil, they were turned away from truth.
§ XII
Abbreviating the things John places in chapter 7, where persecutions and insults against Christ are also narrated, it is said that Jesus walked in Galilee, a province other than Judea, where Jerusalem was. The cause is assigned: “For he did not wish to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.” According to Augustine, in this he gives an example that when someone, even a prelate, is unjustly sought for death, he can and should change place to preserve himself, provided that the flock committed to him can remain safe without him. You have this more fully in Cause 7, Question 1, § Hoc tunc, and canon Sciscitari.
When the feast of Scenopegia—that is, Tabernacles—in the month of September was near, his brothers said to him—not carnal brothers, because according to Augustine Mary had him as her only-begotten and all the others called brothers here were his blood relatives in various degrees—“Pass from here and go into Judea, so that your disciples also may see the works you do,” and so forth.
This is not understood of the twelve disciples who always followed him, but of others among the crowds in Judea who were drawn to him and his teaching. They were caring for his temporal glory and their own. Augustine says that because they sought human glory they did not believe in him, and the evangelist relates that these brothers did not believe in him. They could possess Christ as a kinsman, but because of that very proximity they disdained to believe in him.
According to Chrysostom, those words contained much bitterness, because they charged him with fear, love of glory, and the truth of the signs, as though they suspected that his miracles were not true.
Christ answered gently, teaching us not to take offense even if base people advise us. “My time,” he says, “has not yet come,” namely the time of my glory, when I shall come into exaltation. “But your time is always ready,” that is, the glory of the world you seek.
Or, according to Chrysostom, perhaps those brothers sought to betray him and hand him over to the Jews. Therefore he says that his time, namely of death and Passion, had not yet come. He says their time was ready for seeking this together with the Jews, namely his death.
Because two charges seemed to be made against him, fear and vainglory, against the first he says: “The world cannot hate you; it hates me, because I bear testimony concerning it that its works”—that is, the works of the world’s lovers—“are evil.” From this it is evident that he was not afraid when he reproved vices.
Against the second charge he says: “You go up to the feast.” For if he had desired glory, he would have kept them with him so that he might ascend with a larger retinue. “But I shall not go up,” namely with you or publicly, as they advised. For he certainly did go up, as the evangelist adds, but not with them.
After they had gone up, he himself went secretly to the feast. Much murmuring arose about him, people saying: “Where is he?” Their statements varied, for some called him good and others a seducer. The crowds called him good, but the chief priests and Pharisees called him a seducer. Nevertheless, none of those who called him good spoke openly about him, because of fear of the Jews.
When the feast was already half over, he went up into the Temple. That feast of Tabernacles was celebrated for seven days. Therefore he did not go up in the first days but when the feast was half over, that is, in its middle. He delayed coming so that he might make his hearers more attentive, for at the beginning of the feast they attended more to the things belonging to the feast.
Nor did he go up to the feast as his brothers did, to enjoy its delights, but to provide the light of teaching. Hence it is added: “And he taught.”
The Jews marveled, saying: “How does this man know letters, since he has not learned?” Such was the speaker’s power. Although they had said, “He seduces the crowds,” now, transformed, they marveled. Those who knew where he was born and raised had never seen him learning letters, and yet they heard him disputing about the Law and bringing forth testimonies from the Law that no one could produce unless he had learned.
Chrysostom says that from this question they ought to have known that this knowledge was not in him from humanity but from divinity. The Lord Jesus revealed this to them, saying: “My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me,” the Father, who appointed him to be incarnate. The doctrine I have taught and teach is not from me insofar as I am the man you see.
Or, according to Augustine, because Christ insofar as he is God is the Word, Speech, or Doctrine of the Father, he therefore says: “My doctrine is not mine.” That is: I do not have being from myself, but from the Father. Here he strongly shows that his doctrine and the Father’s are one. According to Chrysostom, it is as though he said: I possess nothing through myself alone or anything different from the Father.
To attain knowledge of the height of this matter, he gives a method, adding: “If anyone wishes to do his will.” To do the will of God the Father is to believe in him. “He shall know concerning my doctrine whether it is from God,” and so forth, because he will attain glory, where the mystery of the Trinity and the processions of the persons are perfectly known.
Or, according to Chrysostom, it is as though he said: Take away the anger, envy, and hatred you possess against me without cause and contrary to God’s will, and nothing will prevent you from knowing that the words I speak are God’s words.
“He who speaks from himself,” that is, who wishes to establish some doctrine of his own, “seeks his own glory”; he wishes this for no other reason than to acquire glory for himself. “But he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is truthful, and there is no injustice in him.” It is as though he said: I am truthful because my doctrine contains truth. I possess no injustice because I do not usurp another’s glory.
Augustine says: The Lord gave us a great example of humility when, found in fashion as a man, he does not seek his own glory but the Father’s.
“Did not Moses give you the Law? Yet none of you keeps the Law. Why do you seek to kill me?” Chrysostom says that the Jews brought two accusations against Christ: one, that he did not keep the Sabbath; the other, that he called God his Father, making himself equal to God. He had first refuted the latter by showing that he is not contrary to God but teaches the same things as the Father. He now presses on to the breaking of the Sabbath, saying: “Did not Moses give you the Law?” and so forth.
It is as though he said: The Law contains, “You shall not kill,” yet you wish to kill. That is: If I break the Law by healing on the Sabbath, I nevertheless do so for salvation; but you transgress it for evil, namely by seeking to kill me. Therefore I ought not to be judged by you for transgressing the Law.
Or, according to Augustine, if they performed—that is, fulfilled—the Law, they would find Christ in its very letters and would not kill him when present.
The crowd answered him, not in an orderly manner but turbulently, and therefore it is called a crowd: “You have a demon.” The one who expelled demons was said to have a demon. “Who seeks to kill you?” They deny what they frequently intended.
The Lord, however, was not disturbed but tranquil in truth. Not returning a curse for a curse, he answered tranquilly, giving us an example of patience: “I have done one work, and you all marvel.” What if you were to see all my works? For all the works they saw in the world were his, who made all things, though they did not see this.
“You marvel,” that is, you are disturbed and make a tumult, because I healed the man lying sick at the pool, concerning whom John 5 speaks. “Therefore Moses gave you circumcision,” and so forth.
According to Alcuin, circumcision was given for this purpose: to be a sign of Abraham’s great faith, who believed that from him when very old Christ would be born—that is, Isaac, from whom Christ came. It was also a sign distinguishing from other nations the nation from which Christ was to be born, for the member on which the sign was given is the instrument of generation.
It was also a sign of chastity of soul and body in those who are true sons of Abraham. Augustine says that perhaps circumcision itself signified Christ, namely the stripping away of flesh, that is, of carnal desires from the heart.
It was not without cause given on the member through which the generation of mortals is procured, because one human being is born through another. Thus everyone is born with a foreskin because he is born with the vice of propagation, and God cleanses from neither original nor actual vice except through Christ. The knife was made of stone, and the rock signifies Christ.
Understand, therefore, that this signifies the good work I did by healing the whole person, in soul and body, on the Sabbath. You are forbidden to do servile works on the Sabbath, but healing on the Sabbath is not a servile work, just as neither is eating and drinking in order to preserve the health of the body, and much more of the soul.
Circumcision is said to be not from Moses but from the fathers, because it began with Abraham, who was before Moses. And because by God’s command it had to be performed on a boy on the eighth day from birth, if that eighth day fell on the Sabbath, circumcision was nevertheless performed. They did not think that they thereby broke Moses’s Law—that is, acted contrary to it—because they did a work directed toward the soul’s salvation.
Christ argues from this, proving that he does not act against the Law when he heals on the Sabbath: “If, therefore, a person receives circumcision on the Sabbath,” and so forth. He says “the whole person” because he freed the soul from sins and the body from infirmity. This is in On Penance, Distinction 3.
“Do not judge according to the face, but judge a just judgment.” That is: Do not judge from the dignity of the person, so that because Moses is held in greater glory and honor among you than I, you excuse him from sin in the same work, namely one of salvation, but blame me. For this is to judge according to the face, that is, according to acceptance of persons, which is unjust. Rather, judge justly, that is, from the nature of the things.
Augustine says concerning “Do not judge according to the face”: In this age it is a work of great difficulty not to judge personally. What sounded precious from the Lord’s mouth was written for us. Who is there who does not judge personally except one who loves equally? Although we honor human beings according to diverse ranks, we must fear lest we accept persons. Sometimes judgment is between father and son. We do not equal the son to the father in honor, but we place the son before the father if he has a good cause in truth. The same matter is treated more fully in Cause 2, Question 7, canon Quaeritur.
Certain people of Jerusalem therefore said: “Is not this the one whom the Jews seek to kill?” and so forth. They are specifically said to be from Jerusalem because they had benefited more from his signs, and were therefore more wretched than others. Was it not a great sign that those who raged and sought to kill him, although they held him in their hands, suddenly became still?
They say below, “When the Christ comes, no one knows whence he is,” because Isaiah had said of Christ, “Who shall declare his generation?” He was speaking of Christ’s divinity. According to his humanity, however, the prophet Micah had foretold that he would be born in Bethlehem, and elsewhere it was said: “Because he shall be called a Nazarene.”
Jesus therefore cried out in the Temple concerning these things, saying: “You both know me and know whence I am.” He speaks of himself according to human nativity, because they knew him to be Mary’s son and from Nazareth, although they were ignorant of the Virgin’s childbirth. They knew him according to appearance.
“I did not come from myself,” because he was incarnate by God’s operation. “But he who sent me is true,” namely God the Father, from whom I am, “whom you do not know.” According to Chrysostom, he speaks of their ignorance through works, concerning which Paul says that they confess they know God but deny him by deeds.
Or, according to Hilary, they did not know him according to divinity, namely the Father, because they did not know from whom the Son is. When one of two relatives is unknown, the other too is unknown.
And below: “They sought to apprehend him, yet no one laid hands on him,” because by his own power he restrained them. The reason was that his hour, willed and preordained by him, had not yet come. It was not an hour of fate. Augustine says: The Lord was not born under fate, nor is this to be believed even of you, much less of him through whom you were made.
Many of the crowd believed in him. Origen says that the Lord saved the humble and poor. Yet Chrysostom says that even in these there was not sound faith, but in the manner of a multitude they spoke common things, saying: “When Christ comes, will he perform more signs than this man does?” To say this is not to believe firmly that he is Christ.
The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring about him. Hence the rulers sent attendants to apprehend him. When they arrived, Jesus said to them: “I am with you yet a little while.” He speaks words full of humility, as though to say: Why do you hasten to kill me? Wait a little while.
He does not simply say, “I am here,” but, “with you.” That is: Even if you persecute me, I shall nevertheless not cease teaching and doing what pertains to your salvation. “I go to him who sent me,” as though to say: Returning, I shall ascend to the Father who permitted me to become incarnate.
“You shall seek me”: either after the Resurrection, pierced toward penance, or in the destruction of Jerusalem, “and you shall not find me” according to bodily presence; or in the anguish of that siege you shall not find my help. “And where I am, you cannot come.” He did not say, “Where I shall be,” but, “Where I am,” for Christ was always in glory whence he had come, because his soul continually enjoyed the glory of the deity. They could not then come to it because of their sins.
The Jews said, and so forth: “Will he go to the dispersion of the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles?” They prophesied what they did not understand, like Caiaphas. For Christ was to go, not by his own presence, but by his spiritual feet, through his disciples, who are his members, to teach Gentiles dispersed throughout diverse regions and rites.
On the last and great day of the feast—that is, the last of the seven days of Tabernacles—Jesus cried out because of the multitude of the crowd, so that he might be audible, according to Theophilus, and to display confidence, because he feared no one: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”
According to Chrysostom, it is as though he said: I draw no one by necessity or violence, but if anyone has great desire, I call him.
Augustine says: There is an interior thirst because there is an interior human being. If, therefore, we thirst, let us come, not with the feet but with the affections; let him drink.
Gratian says: It is one thing to taste and another to drink. One tastes who participates in charity to some extent but afterward withdraws from it by sinning. One drinks who fixes his root in charity. This is in On Penance, Distinction 2, § Quod ergo, before canon Principium.
That he speaks of an intellectual drink is evident from what he adds: “He who believes in me,” that is, loves me by believing, as in On Consecration, Distinction 2, “as Scripture says,” that is, in the manner Scripture says, because one must have right knowledge; to act, not from signs, as from the Scriptures.
Or, according to Jerome, “as Scripture says” can be referred to what follows: “Rivers of living water shall flow from his belly.” Scripture says this. The testimony is taken from Proverbs, where it is said: “Let your fountains be carried abroad, and divide the waters in the streets.”
The belly of the interior person is the conscience of his heart. The fountain or river flowing from the belly of the heart is benevolence, by which he wishes to care for his neighbor.
Gregory says: When holy preachings flow from the minds of the faithful, rivers of water run, as it were, from the believers’ belly. What are the belly and entrails except the interiors of the mind: right intention, holy desire, a will humble toward God and dutiful toward one’s neighbor?
The evangelist says: “He said this of the Spirit whom those believing in him were to receive.” What does he call “the Spirit” except the Holy Spirit, whom they afterward received in fiery tongues after the Ascension? Hence, concerning this gift, he adds: “The Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified,” namely outwardly as regards the body, for he was still mortal.
The Holy Spirit had indeed been given to John the Baptist, sanctified in the womb; to Zechariah, Simeon, Elizabeth; indeed, to all the saints of the Old Testament. But he had not been given in that fullness, visible sign, and singular effect, namely speaking in all languages, as occurred after Christ’s Ascension.
From that hour, the evangelist says, when the crowd heard these words they said: “This is truly the Prophet.” Others said: “This is the Christ.” But others said: “Does the Christ come from Galilee? Does not Scripture say that the Christ comes from David’s seed and from Bethlehem?” Thus a division concerning him arose in the crowd.
Some wished to apprehend him, but no one laid hands on him. When the attendants returned to the Pharisees who had sent them to seize him and were asked why they had not brought him captive, they answered: “Never has a man spoken as this man speaks.”
They said: “Have you also been seduced? Has anyone of the rulers or Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the Law, is accursed.” Nicodemus said to them: “Does our Law judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he does?” They answered: “Are you also a Galilean? Search the Scriptures and see that a prophet does not arise from Galilee.” Each returned to his own house. These are the evangelist’s words.