On the Teaching of Jesus Christ in His Replies to Pious Inquiries Made by His Disciples for the Sake of Knowing the Truth
When Jesus had shown the difficulty of the salvation of the rich, Peter asked him, as Matthew narrates: “Behold, we have left all things and followed you,” namely in poverty. “What, therefore, shall there be for us?” That is: What recompense, what reward?
He says “all things”: temporal things belonging to riches, bodily things belonging to pleasures, and interior things belonging to one’s own wills. He who says “all” excludes nothing. This is in Distinction 19, canon Si Romanorum. We possess all the aforesaid things, or can possess or desire them.
Christ answered him: “You who have followed me.” For perfection does not consist in poverty but in following and imitating Christ, especially through charity, patience, humility, and the other virtues.
“In the regeneration,” that is, in the final resurrection, when human beings are in a certain manner generated again by rising, but into immortal being, “when the Son of Man shall sit in his majesty,” that is, when he appears at the final judgment in his glory and power to judge the world, “you also shall sit upon twelve seats,” that is, you shall be with me like assessors in judging, by approving the sentence Christ will pass, which will be a dignity of the highest degree.
“Judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Twelve is a superabundant number, because its aliquot parts multiplied together exceed the number twelve. Hence it signifies the universality both of all those to be judged and of the assessing judges.
Not only the twelve Apostles will be judges and assessors with Christ, but all others who perfectly forsake the world. Hence he adds: “And everyone who leaves father, mother, children, sisters, and fields for my name shall receive a hundredfold and possess eternal life.”
Mark relates it in this way: “There is no one who leaves the aforesaid things for me and for the Gospel who shall not receive a hundred times as much in this age: now houses, brothers, sisters, children, mothers, or fields, with persecutions; and in the age to come eternal life.”
According to John Cassian in the Conferences, this is understood as follows. Those who truly forsake the aforesaid things, like upright religious, receive in religion, for the one father and one mother they forsake, a hundred spiritual fathers—namely the prelates of that religious order, its elders, and beneficent mothers in those places—and brothers, namely companions; fields, namely possessions of convents or secular people from which alms are given to them; and houses, namely convents or the homes of those who receive them as guests.
A definite number is placed for an indefinite one, that is, many more. But he adds “with persecutions,” namely those of the world, the devil, and the flesh, and in the future, eternal life.
The hundredfold is understood in another way. It signifies spiritual goods, because according to arithmetic such a number is placed on the right hand, which signifies spiritual things, just as the left signifies temporal things. On the left hand are placed all the numbers up to one hundred. The meaning, therefore, is that in return for the temporal things a person leaves, he will receive the spiritual goods of the virtues and their perfection, which incomparably exceed all the temporal goods that are relinquished.
That judicial power will be given at the end of the world to the poor who perfectly forsake the world is evident from the authority of Job: “He gives judgment to the poor.” This is explained by blessed Thomas in Book Four.
When Christ had admonished them concerning fraternal correction, Peter questioned him, saying: “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Perhaps Peter was moved to express this number because it occurs frequently in Scripture: because God completed his work, which he had accomplished, in seven days; because the time of the world passes through the sevenfold number of weeks and ages; or, rather, because Solomon says in Proverbs, “Seven times in a day the just man falls.”
Christ answered him: “I do not say to you up to seven times only, but up to seventy times seven.” This is explained in several ways. In one way, it is understood of every sin, for seventy-seven results from multiplying eleven seven times. Eleven is a number signifying transgression, because it exceeds ten, by which the Decalogue is denoted, while seven signifies universality. Therefore, to forgive an offender seventy-seven times is to forgive every transgression he has committed against all the commandments.
In another way it means seven times seventy, which makes four hundred and ninety—that is, as many times as a human being could scarcely sin against someone. A definite number is placed for an indefinite one.
In a third way, according to Luke, seventy-seven generations are counted from the beginning of the world, from Adam to Christ, through which successive generations Christ descended. It is as though he said: Even if a person committed as many sins as all those seventy-seven generations committed, just as I have come to forgive the sins of all, so also you, my vicar, forgive all sins when the sinner returns to true penance.
This is what Luke says: “If he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times in a day turns back to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” This is to be understood in the penitential forum and when he appears to be truly penitent. Therefore he says significantly, “turns back.” Conversion implies true penance, as is evident. Otherwise a priest ought not to forgive, that is, absolve, because, as the rule of law has it in the Sixth Book of the Rules of Law, pardon is not given except to one who has been corrected. See also On Penance, Distinction 1, canon Neminem, and Distinction 5, canon Fratres.
In the judicial forum, however, no matter how much a guilty person repents, the judge must punish him according to the character of his offense and must not leave him unpunished. For when one unworthy person is spared, Ambrose says, all are summoned toward the contagion of ruin. The ease of pardon supplies an incentive to transgression. This is in Cause 23, Question 4, canon Est iniusta.
In the case of personal injuries, however, a private person must always forgive, that is, never retain hatred or rancor; and when the one who sinned against him asks pardon, he must remove any sign of rancor, such as refusing to speak and the like, and remit the action for the injuries when the offender makes suitable satisfaction, insofar as he can. Hence Pope Fabian says: “If anyone who has been grieved by his brother refuses to be reconciled when the one who grieved him makes satisfaction, let him be afflicted with the severest fasts.” This is in Distinction 91, gloss 1; that is, with the penalty of excommunication.
Again, when the Lord Jesus foretold to the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, and die, as Matthew narrates, Peter took hold of him—perhaps restraining him by his garment, moved by excessive affection and compassion for him—and began to rebuke him, saying: “Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen to you.” It was as though he said: You will not go to Jerusalem, lest you suffer these things. It is not good for you to go and have yourself killed.
But Jesus turned and answered Peter: “Go behind me, Satan; you are a scandal to me, because you savor not the things that are of God but those that are of human beings.” Satan is interpreted “adversary” or “opponent.” Peter is therefore called Satan, that is, an opponent of Christ, but not in the same way as the devil. For the devil opposes Christ’s will and our salvation from malice, whereas Peter, from piety toward Christ and in ignorance of the mystery of human redemption, opposed Christ’s will by which Christ desired to suffer for the salvation of the world.
Therefore, after the devil was conquered in the temptation, Christ said to him, “Go, Satan,” that is, withdraw from the faithful. He was restraining the devil’s malice so that it might not dare to tempt and deceive so greatly. But to Peter it was said, “Go behind me,” that is, imitate him in the suffering of the cross; for Peter wished to restrain him from going to the Passion toward which he was hastening.
“Scandal” is not taken here for a scandal that includes sin, because there was no such scandal in him, either active or passive. In this Peter did not savor what belonged to God’s will, namely the Father’s, but what nature and sensuality dictate to human beings, namely to avoid death.
Consequently Christ shows that for the perfect following of Christ and the attainment of salvation it is necessary to mortify sensuality and expose oneself to death when expedient, saying: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself,” that is, let him cast off his own vicious passions by not following them, “and take up his cross”—not Christ’s cross, which he could not bear because of its magnitude, but his own, namely the tribulations and afflictions prepared by God’s will.
He says “take up,” not merely by exhorting others in words, but by enduring them in his own person through deeds and suffering voluntarily, “and follow me,” exposing his own life to death when expedient. This is what follows: “For whoever wishes to save his soul,” namely the rational soul, “shall lose it,” namely the sensitive and vegetative soul. There is a simple reference when he says “it”: it refers to the same noun, but not to its whole signification. From this it is not said that there are several souls in a human being, but several powers that in diverse things are called souls.
Or, according to Basil, denial of self is a withdrawal from one’s own wills. Or, according to Origen, a person denies himself when, by due alteration, he changes the life formerly accustomed to wickedness—for example, from lust to chastity and from gluttony to abstinence.
The person who wishes to save his soul is the one who wishes to live according to the present life and preserve his own soul in sensible things; he loses and spiritually kills it. But the one who loses it as regards a vicious life saves it.
After the Transfiguration, the disciples questioned Jesus one day, saying: “Who, do you think, is greater in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus called a little child and set him in their midst. He answered: “Amen I say to you, unless you are converted and become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
In this he shows the virtues necessary for beatitude, namely conversion of conduct. Conversion is said to be the heart’s turning in every direction, as in On Penance, Distinction 1, § Scindite, after canon Facilius: namely that the whole person be changed through penance, turning away from every sin and turning and directing his whole self toward the immutable good.
In addition, let him become a little child, not in age or ignorance, but let him possess spiritually a little child’s qualities: simplicity, humility, obedience, meekness, humanity, credulity, and the like.
Because they seem to have asked such a question from a degree of ambition, aspiring to superiority, Christ gently removed them from this and added: “Whoever, therefore, humbles himself like this little child”—whether this is understood of a humble person in general or of the child he placed in their midst, whom some say was Saint Martial—“he is greater in the kingdom of heaven,” namely the Church militant and triumphant.
Hence his mother, the Virgin Mary, was the most humble of all, and therefore she is sung as exalted above the choirs of angels. Chrysostom says: Let no one hasten to appear greater than others, but rather to appear lower than all, because it is not the one greater in honor who is more just; rather, the one who is more just is greater. This is in Distinction 40, canon Multi.
He next spoke of the evil of scandal and admonished that it must be avoided above all, for it certainly follows when superiority is sought. See Cause 1, Question 1, canon Principatus. Finally, he showed that angels are appointed to guard human beings when he said, “Their angels in heaven,” and so forth.
When the time of the Passion was near, he was making his way from Galilee so as to reach Jerusalem, passing through Samaria. He sent ahead two of the disciples, namely James and his brother John, to prepare in a lodging what was necessary for the meal. When they entered a certain city of the Samaritans, the people refused to receive them because they knew their journey was directed toward Jerusalem. Samaritans did not associate with Jews, but each group regarded the other with abhorrence.
John and James therefore said: “Lord, do you wish us to command fire to descend from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” Jesus rebuked them, saying: “You do not know of whose spirit you are. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy souls but to save them.” And they went into another village.
On this Ambrose says in Cause 23, Question 4: “Because Christ rebuked his disciples when they desired fire to descend upon those who had not received him, we are shown that judgment must not always be exercised against those who sin, because sometimes clemency benefits you more toward patience than it benefits the fallen person toward correction. Finally, the Samaritans from whom fire is withheld in this passage believed more quickly. Nor do the disciples sin, for they follow the Law: they knew that it had been reckoned as justice for Phinehas that he killed the sacrilegious, and that at Elijah’s prayers fire had descended from heaven.” These are his words.
Gratian adds in the following section: “Something else can be understood in this prohibition given to the Apostles. The Apostles wished the Samaritans to be consumed by fire, not from zeal for justice, but from the hatred of bitterness in order to avenge the injury of their own expulsion. But the Lord, wishing them to bear with patience and joy an injury to their own persons while not leaving unavenged an injury to divine service, says: ‘You do not know of whose spirit you are.’” These are his words.
That is, you do not understand by what spirit you are being led. It seems to you that you are being moved from zeal over an injury to God, but you are being moved from indignation over your own inconvenience.
Continuing that journey toward Jericho, after Jesus had foretold to the disciples his Passion and death and the Resurrection that would follow on the third day, the mother of John and James, called Mary Salome, approached Jesus, adored him, and said: “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right hand and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”
Because Jesus had foretold the Resurrection after intimating his Passion, she and her sons thought that upon rising he would manifest his exaltation in the kingdom. But Jesus knew that she had asked this not of herself but at her sons’ instigation: so that they would not scandalize their companions if they themselves made the request, as though wishing to be honored above the others; and so that, if the petition were improper, they themselves would be less embarrassed when their mother asked it, since allowance is easily made for a woman as one who considers matters less carefully.
Therefore he answered not the mother but her sons James and John, saying: “You do not know what you ask.” For you ask for a seat in my kingdom as though it were a kind of temporal exaltation, although it is a spiritual kingdom, and therefore you do not know what you ask. You ask on account of blood relationship for what is given only on account of virtue. Hence there is nothing left-hand there, but everything there is right-hand, that is, prosperous and holy, and therefore you do not know what you ask. You ask for the greatest recompense and reward, which is reached only through great labors that you have not yet endured, and therefore you do not know what you ask.
Hence he added: “Can you drink the cup that I am to drink?” that is, endure the Passion that I shall undergo. For if, the Apostle says, we are companions in sufferings, we shall also be companions in consolation.
They answered, “We can,” because they thought so and had the intention, but they were not yet fit for it, as the event proved at the time of the Passion, when all fled.
Christ answered: “My cup you shall indeed drink,” by enduring sufferings, persecutions, and many afflictions for faith in Christ. James was beheaded under Herod one year after the Lord’s Passion. John the Evangelist, under Domitian, was cast at Rome into a vat of boiling oil, although he escaped unharmed.
“But to sit at my right or left is not mine to give you,” that is, it does not belong to my humanity, by reason of which you are my blood relatives. Nor is it mine to give you as ambitious men. Hence Chrysostom says: “Whoever desires primacy on earth will find confusion in heaven, nor shall he be reckoned among Christ’s servants who has treated of primacy.” This is in Distinction 40, canon Multi.
“But it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father,” through predestination and the right operation of a humble person. When the other ten Apostles were indignant because of John and James’s petition, Jesus reconciled and quieted them among themselves, declaring by his own example that those who are greater or preside ought to serve others and conduct themselves humbly.
§ I
In the discourse Christ delivered at the Last Supper, which John writes from chapter 13 up to, but not including, chapter 18, Christ replied with profound and wise words when some of the Apostles questioned him. For when the Lord Jesus said, “If I go and prepare for you”—namely my disciples and other truly faithful people—“a place,” namely a place of glory, “I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”
“And you know where I go, and you know the way.”
Augustine asks: How does Christ go and prepare a place if there are already many mansions? Augustine answers the question himself, saying: They do not yet exist as they are to be prepared. For the very mansions he prepared by predestining, he prepares by working. Therefore they already exist in predestination; otherwise he would have said, “I shall go and prepare,” that is, predestine. But because they do not yet exist in operation, he says, “If I go and prepare a place for you.”
He now prepares the mansions by preparing their inhabitants, who are the house of God and the holy temple of God, namely the faithful. Therefore this house of God is still being built; it is still being prepared. Concerning this house, see Cause 24, Question 1, canon Omnibus.
Christ therefore comes by hiding, that is, by withdrawing his presence, whence faith arises. He comes by appearing, namely through glory. But unless he remains by governing us, so that we advance by living well, the place where we may remain in enjoyment will not be prepared.
He adds: “You know where I go,” namely to the Father, “and you know the way,” namely through me.
Thomas therefore questions him, saying: “Lord, we do not know where you go.” Theophilus says: If the Jews, who wished to be separated from Christ, asked where he was going, much more did the disciples, who were in no way willing to be separated from him, desire to say this; and they questioned him out of great love and fear. Hence Thomas says: “Lord, we do not know where you go, and how can we know the way?”
Augustine says: The Lord had said that they knew both things; Thomas said that they knew neither. But the Lord does not know how to lie. Therefore they knew, but did not know that they knew.
He consequently joins both things together as known by them. Hence it follows: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” It is as though he said: By what way do you wish to go? I am the way. Where do you wish to go? I am the truth. Where do you wish to remain? I am the life.
Augustine says: Every human being grasps truth and life, but not every human being finds the way. Even the philosophers of this age saw that God is a certain eternal life and knowable truth. The Word of God with the Father is therefore truth and life; by assuming humanity he became the way. Walk through the human being and you will arrive at God. It is better to limp on the way than to walk vigorously beside the way.
Hilary says in On the Trinity: “I am the way,” and so forth. He who is the way does not lead us into wandering and trackless places; he who is the truth does not mock us through falsehoods; he who is the life does not leave us in the error of death.
Theophilus says: When you exercise the active life, Christ becomes the way for you; when you persevere in the contemplative life, Christ becomes the truth for you. Life, however, is added to both the active and the contemplative life. For it is fitting to go and preach for the sake of the age to come. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Gregory says in Distinction 7: If perhaps you raise custom as an objection, it must be observed that the Lord did not say, “I am custom,” but, “I am truth.” And, to use the saying of blessed Cyprian, every custom, however ancient and however widespread, must be wholly set aside for truth, and a usage contrary to truth must be abolished. These are his words.
He adds: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Augustine says: Although above he had said, “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him,” now you say that no one can come to the Father except through me. He makes himself equal to the one who begot him.
Christ explains how he said, “You know where I go, and you know the way,” adding: “If you had known me, you would certainly have known my Father also.” According to one gloss, it is as though he said: If you knew my substance and dignity, you would know that it is also the Father’s.
They indeed knew him, but not as they ought. Afterward the Spirit came and perfectly established knowledge in them. For this reason he adds, “From now on you shall know him,” speaking of that knowledge which is according to the mind, “and you have seen him,” namely by my showing him, because whoever sees me also sees the Father as regards divinity, since both have one substance together with the Holy Spirit.
The Apostles then saw him not in naked substance but clothed in flesh; nevertheless they believed him to be God, although imperfectly. And because Christ had said above, “You know where I go,” but now says, “If you had known me,” Bede says that these statements give us to understand that some of them knew and some did not know, one of whom was Thomas.
Hilary says in his book On the Trinity: The novelty of the sayings stirred the Apostle Philip. A human being is perceived, yet he confesses that he is the Son of God. Once he himself is known, he declares that God the Father must be known. He says that the Father has been seen. Therefore apostolic familiarity burst forth to question the Lord, as the Evangelist adds: Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
He did not deny that the Father had been seen, but asked that he be shown to him. Nor did he desire a showing in the likeness of bodily contemplation, but asked for a demonstration for understanding the one who had been seen. For he had seen the Son in the appearance of a human being, but he did not know whether through that he had seen the Father. To show that this showing would be a demonstration for understanding rather than for seeing, he added, “And it is enough for us.”
Augustine says: In that joy which will fill us from his countenance, nothing further will be required. Philip had understood this well when he said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us,” but he had not yet understood how he could have said in the same way to the Lord Jesus himself, “Lord, show us yourself, and it is enough for us.”
So that he might understand this, God answered him. Hence it follows: Jesus said to him, “So long a time have I been with you, and you have not known me?”
Augustine says: But how does he say this when they knew both where he was going and the way, for no other reason than because they knew him? This question is easily resolved if we say that some of them knew and others did not, among whom was Philip.
Hilary says: He therefore reproves the Apostle as ignorant in knowing him. For since the things that he did were proper to God—to tread upon the waves, command the winds, forgive sins, and restore life to the dead, every question arose from this complaint: that the divine nature was not understood in the assumed human being. Therefore to the one who asked that the Father be shown to him, he said: “Philip, he who sees me sees the Father also.”
Augustine says: We are accustomed to speak thus of two persons who are very similar: “You have seen this one; you have seen that one.” Thus it was said: “He who sees me sees the Father also,” not because the Father and the Son are the same person, but because the Son differs in no respect from the Father’s likeness.
Hilary says in On the Trinity: Here he does not signify the sight of bodily eyes. For contemplating in him what was fleshly from the Virgin’s childbirth does not contribute to beholding the form and image of God; rather, when the Son is understood to be God, it follows that the Father also is understood. For the Son is an image in such a way that he does not differ in kind but signifies authority.
The expression does not signify one who is solitary, while the confession teaches an undifferentiated nature. For when he says “also the Father,” the understanding of one solitary and unique person is excluded. What therefore remains except that, through the unique likeness of nature, the Father is seen through the Son?
But Augustine says that the Lord reproved the disciple because he saw what the petitioner asked, that is, the petitioner’s heart. Philip wished to know the Father as though the Father were better than the Son, and therefore he did not know the Son, because he believed someone to be better than him.
To correct this understanding it was said: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” It is as though he said: If it is too much for you to see this, at least believe what you do not see.
Hilary says: What necessity remained for making the Father known or showing him to the ignorant, when the Father had been seen in the Son from the property of nature, since through the undifferentiated unity the one born and the one generating are one? Hence this saying of the Lord followed: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”
The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, not through a conjunction of two kinds nor through a nature implanted in a more capacious substance, because under bodily necessity exterior things cannot become interior to those by which they are contained. Rather, this is through the birth of a living nature from one who lives, since nothing other than God is born from God.
Or the whole passage is explained otherwise according to Chrysostom. Philip wished to see the Father with bodily eyes because he thought he had also seen the Son himself in this way, perhaps having heard from the prophets, “I saw the Lord.” Therefore he said: “Lord, show us the Father.” The Jews had also asked him, “Where is your Father?” Peter and Thomas had asked where he was going, and no one had learned it openly.
So that Philip might not appear burdensome in asking, “Show us the Father,” he adds, “and it is enough for us,” that is, we seek nothing more. The Lord did not say to him that he had asked for the impossible, but showed that he had not even seen the Son himself. For if he could have seen the Son, he would also have seen the Father.
Therefore he says: “So long a time have I been with you, and you have not known me, Philip?” He did not say, “You have not seen me,” but, “You have not known me,” namely as regards the fact that the Son, while remaining what the Father is, fittingly shows in himself the one who begot him.
Then, distinguishing the hypostases, he says: “He who sees me sees the Father also,” lest anyone say that the Father himself is the Son himself. Through this he shows that Philip had not seen the Son by bodily sight either.
If anyone wishes to say that “seeing” here means knowledge, I do not contradict him. It is as though he said: He who has known me has known the Father also. Yet he did not say this; wishing to represent consubstantiality, he said: He who has seen my substance has also seen that which belongs to the Father.
Hence it is evident that this does not occur in a creature. For all who see a creature do not thereby know God. Philip also sought to see the Father’s substance. Therefore, if the Son were of another substance, he would not say, “He who sees me sees the Father also.” Nor can anyone see the substance of gold in silver, for one nature does not appear through another.
Then he speaks in the plural, not only to Philip but to all, saying: “The words I speak I do not speak from myself.” What does this mean except: I who speak am not from myself? He attributes what he does to the one from whom he himself, who does it, exists.
Hence he neither denied himself to be the Son nor concealed in himself the nature of the Father’s power. For while he speaks, he speaks while remaining in his own substance; yet while he does not speak from himself, he testifies within himself to his birth as God from God.
See, moreover, the abundant demonstration of one substance, for it is added: “But the Father who remains in me, he performs the works.” It is as though he said: It is by no means the case that the Father acts in one way and I in another.
Beginning with words, he therefore comes to works. It would have been fitting to say, “He speaks the words.” But he sets down two things concerning teaching and signs, because words too were works. For whoever builds up his neighbor by speaking performs a good work.
What does “the Father who remains in me, he performs the works” mean except: by remaining in me, I perform them? Augustine says this. But Hilary says: For the Father to remain in the Son is not the action of one solitary and unique person, and for the Son to work through the Father is not the action of one who is different or external.
Because he had taught that the Father both speaks and works in him, he perfectly establishes faith in this unity, saying: “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” lest the Father be believed to work and speak in the Son through the efficacy of power and not through the property of nature which is according to birth. For so it is found in the Greek; our text, however, has: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”
But if this does not suffice to demonstrate consubstantiality, at least learn it from the works. Hence it is added: “Otherwise believe on account of the works themselves.” For you have seen signs done with authority and all the things proper to deity, which the Father alone performs: sins released, death withdrawing, and the like.
Therefore, on account of the works believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me. For if we were separate, we could in no way work inseparably.
Because the Lord had said, “Believe on account of the works,” showing not only that he has this power but that he has far greater power, and that it is more marvelous that he can give it to others, he therefore added: “Amen I say to you: He who believes in me shall himself perform the works I perform, and shall perform greater works than these.”
Augustine asks: But what are these greater works? Is it perhaps that, as the disciples passed by, the sick were healed even by their shadow? For it is greater that a shadow should heal than a garment’s hem.
Yet when he said these things, he was commending the deeds and works of his words. For when he said, “The Father who remains in me performs the works,” what works was he then calling works except the words he was speaking? And the fruit of those words was their faith.
Nevertheless, when the disciples preached the Gospel, not merely as few people as those who were present, but even the Gentiles believed. Did not that sorrowful rich man depart from his mouth? Yet what one man did not do when he heard it from Christ, many did when Christ spoke through the disciples. Behold, when preached by believers he did greater things than when speaking to his hearers.
But this point still disturbs us: that he performed these greater things through the Apostles, yet he did not say this while signifying only them; rather, he said, “He who believes in me.” Is someone who has not performed greater works than Christ to be reckoned among those who do not believe in Christ? This is difficult unless it is understood as follows.
The Apostle says of one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly: “Faith is reckoned unto justice.” In this work we shall perform Christ’s works, because to believe in Christ is itself a work of Christ. He works this in us, certainly not without us.
Hear, therefore: “He who believes in me shall himself perform the works I perform.” First I perform them; then he shall perform them, because I bring it about that he performs them. What works are these except that an ungodly person becomes just? Christ certainly works this in him, but not without him.
I would say without hesitation that this is greater than creating heaven and earth. For heaven and earth shall pass away, but the number and justification of the predestined shall remain.
But in heaven the angels are works of Christ. Does the one who cooperates with Christ toward his own justification perform works greater even than these? Let whoever can judge whether it is greater to create the just than to justify the ungodly.
Certainly, if both are of equal power, the latter is of greater mercy.
But no necessity compels us to understand all Christ’s works in the passage where he says, “He shall perform greater works than these.” For perhaps by “these” he meant the works he was performing at that hour. At that time he was speaking words of faith, and it is certainly less to preach words of justice—which he did without us—than to justify the ungodly, which he performs in us in such a way that we also act.
The Lord, however, promised great hope to his people when they pray, saying, “Because I go to the Father.” These are Augustine’s words. That is: I do not perish, but I shall remain in my proper dignity and pray in heaven.
Or he says this as though to say: Henceforth it is for you to perform miracles, for I go. And lest anyone attribute them to himself, he added, to show that he himself also performs those greater works: “And whatever you ask the Father in my name, this I shall do.” It is as though he said: I am the one who will act, and then I shall do greater things through those who believe in me than I now do through myself. This is not a defect, but a condescension.
He says “in my name” because the Apostles said in the name of Jesus Christ, “Rise and walk.” For all the signs they performed, he himself performed, and the hand of the Lord was with them.
But what does “Whatever you ask” mean, when we see his faithful often ask and not receive, as did the Apostle Paul concerning the thorn of the flesh? Hear what is placed there: “In my name,” which is Christ Jesus. Jesus, Augustine says, signifies Savior. Therefore whatever we ask contrary to the benefit of salvation we do not ask in the Savior’s name. Yet he is the Savior not only when he does what we ask, but also when he does not do it. For the physician knows what the sick person requests for his health and what he requests against it.
Indeed, although we ask certain things in his name, he does not do them when we ask, but he nevertheless does them. What we ask is delayed, not denied, as with the petition, “Your kingdom come.”
He adds, “So that the Father may be glorified in the Son,” and so forth. Therefore the Son in no way acts without the Father, since the Son acts precisely so that the Father may be glorified in him. For when the Son is shown to be mighty in great things, the one who begot him is glorified.
Next the Lord Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to his disciples if they loved him, which would be shown in their observance of his commandments, saying: “I shall ask the Father”—insofar as he is human, as one less than the Father he asks; insofar as he is God, together with the Father he grants—“and he shall give you another Paraclete.”
Paraclete is a Greek name and is interpreted in Latin as “consoler” or “advocate.” He consoles people in adversity with the hope of rewards, and those mourning their sins with confidence in their remission. He is called advocate because “the Spirit himself asks for us with unutterable groanings,” that is, he makes us ask.
Christ calls him “another” than himself not because of a diversity of substance, but because of a distinction of person. Or, according to Didymus, Christ named the Holy Spirit another Paraclete not according to a difference in his nature, but according to a diversity of operation. For since the Savior held the person of mediator and envoy, by which as high priest he intercedes for our sins, the Holy Spirit, according to another signification of Paraclete, was named from the fact that he consoles those placed in sorrow.
Yet do not suppose from the diverse operations of the Son and the Holy Spirit that they have different natures. For in another passage the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, is found to perform before the Father the person of an envoy, and Christ Jesus to work consolation in hearts. The Spirit will remain with us forever, for he does not withdraw even after death.
Christ calls him the Spirit of Truth because he makes manifest the figures of the Old Testament, and also because he proceeds from Truth, the Son, and because truth, by whomsoever it is spoken, is from the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son.
“Whom the world cannot receive,” that is, people who love the world while remaining in that state cannot receive him because of their indisposition, “because it does not see him,” namely with the most certain knowledge of God. For worldly love does not possess the invisible eyes through which alone the Holy Spirit can be invisibly seen.
After some other words the Lord Jesus says: “On that day you shall know,” through perfect faith or in glory through vision, “that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” According to Hilary in On the Trinity, Christ is in the Father through the nature of divinity. We, contrariwise, are in him through his bodily birth, by which he assumed our nature, so that he in turn might be believed to be in us through the mystery of the sacrament.
For he himself testified: “He who eats my flesh remains in me, and I in him.” This is in On Consecration, Distinction 2, canon In Christo Patrem.
Finally he concluded: “He who loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and shall manifest myself to him.” In chapter 16 he also promised that he would send them the same Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, after his departure. While he was with them, namely in bodily presence, he could not give the Spirit to them because of their indisposition. They were so attached to that humanity because of his miracles, teaching, and kindness that they did not raise their minds and affections to his divinity.
He shows what the Spirit will do in them and through them, saying: “When he comes, he will convict the world of sin,” namely the sin of unbelief that unbelievers possess, “and of justice,” namely the virtuousness that many of the faithful lack, “and of judgment,” namely the severity that many do not beware.
For although the sinful devil, prince of the world, has been judged and eternally condemned to the fire, wretched human beings do not take care to avoid imitating him in evils and adhering to his vicious suggestions. For this reason they too will follow him in punishments.
Thereafter he intimated that the Spirit himself would teach them all truth, namely the truth necessary for life, teaching, and justice, by discovering, teaching, and judging. He would also glorify Christ, namely by making them understand his deity and by performing miracles through them in Jesus’s name. The Spirit would perform all these things, not possessing them from himself, but from the Father and from the Son himself, from whom he is.
Then Judas questioned him—not Iscariot, but the one who is called Thaddeus by another name: “Lord, what has happened that you are going to manifest yourself to us and not to the world?” That is, to those who love you, and not to those who do not love you but love the world, for which reason Christ calls them the world.
Jesus answered: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.” Gregory says: The proof of love is the manifestation of a work. The love of God is never idle, for if it exists it performs great things. If it refuses to work, it is not love.
“And my Father will love him.” Augustine says: Love distinguishes the saints from the world. In it the Father and the Son make their mansion, who give that very love by which we love him, without excluding the Holy Spirit, because the works of the Trinity are inseparable. This is in On Consecration, Distinction 4, canon Omnes.
The works in question are all the Trinity’s works ad extra, as is said there, through which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit give their inward manifestation, which the ungodly have not known.
“And we shall come to him,” Christ says, “and shall make our mansion with him.” Augustine says: They come to us while we come to them. They come by assisting; we come by receiving, so that our vision of them may be not external but internal, and their dwelling in us not transitory but eternal. “And we shall make our mansion with him.”
For he comes into the hearts of certain people and does not make a mansion, because through compunction they receive a regard for God, but in the time of temptation they forget what had moved them to compunction, namely by returning to sins.
That person truly loves whose mind an evil delight does not overcome through consent. Understand this of mortal sins, not venial ones. The divine persons come jointly, provided the person possesses love, according to Augustine’s saying: “Charity is rooted: be secure; it can produce nothing evil.” This is in On Penance, Distinction 2.
Augustine says in his book On the Trinity: We must not think that, when the Father and Son make their mansion in the one who loves them, the Holy Spirit is excluded from this mansion, since it was said above concerning the Holy Spirit, “He shall remain in us,” and again, “that he may remain with you forever.” But to intimate the Trinity they are spoken of with the individual persons named; they are nevertheless not understood as separated from the others, because of the one substance of the same Trinity.
“He who does not love me does not keep my words.” Gregory says: Concerning love of the Creator, let tongue, mind, and life be examined. Each person is separated from heavenly love to the same degree that he delights in the lowest things.
“And the word you have heard is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me.” Augustine says: Perhaps on account of some distinction, where he called them his own he spoke of “words” in the plural, but where he now says “word” in the singular, this is the Word. He said that the Word is not his own, but wished himself to be understood as the Father’s. For he is not his own Word but the Father’s, not his own image but the Father’s, not his own Son but the Father’s.
Rightly, therefore, he attributes to the author what the equal performs, from whom he has this very thing, that he is the undifferentiated equal of him.
Jesus adds: “These things I have spoken to you while remaining with you.” Augustine says: One dwelling is the future one he promised; another is the present one to which he testifies. The former is spiritual and is rendered inwardly to minds; the latter is bodily and is manifested outwardly.
Because they had understood some of the things he had said and did not understand others, lest they be troubled and so that they might more easily endure his departure, he promises one who would both console them and teach what they had not understood from his sayings, adding: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.” Why the Holy Spirit is called Paraclete was explained above. The seven names for him that designate his property and the effects he works in the elect are found in the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus.
“Whom the Father will send.” Bede says: When the grace of the Holy Spirit is given to human beings, the Spirit is sent by the Father and is sent by the Son, because he proceeds from the Father and proceeds from the Son; for his mission is his procession. These are his words.
Because mission includes procession, and the Spirit does not proceed from himself but from the Father and Son, he is therefore not said to be sent by himself. Nevertheless, the very infusion of grace into a creature, according to which he is said to be sent, also proceeds from the Holy Spirit, since it is a work performed in a creature.
That the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son, the Son himself says below: “I shall send you from the Father the Spirit of Truth,” that is, the Spirit proceeding from me, who am Truth. Hence, against the error of the Greeks who deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, it is said in On Consecration, Distinction 5, canon De Spiritu, from the Council of Ephesus: “He is called the Almighty’s Spirit of Truth, and Christ is Truth. Hence he proceeds also from Christ as from God the Father.”
Likewise Didymus says in the final chapter of the Decrees: “The Savior, who is also Truth, says”—speaking of the Holy Spirit—“For he shall not speak from himself.” This means: without me and without my will and the Father’s will, because he can be sent by my will and the Father’s; and further, because he is not from himself but from the Father and from me. For the very fact that he subsists and speaks is his from the Father and from me. His speaking, however, is his breathing into human hearts.
And below: “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, God from God, the Spirit of Truth proceeding from Truth, the Consoler flowing from the Consoler,” namely Christ.
Because the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in the Son’s name, Didymus says this shows that he is joined to the Son in unity. Hence he is also called the Spirit of the Son, making through his adoption those willing to receive him into sons.
It follows: “He shall teach you all things,” namely those that are spiritual and the intellectual mysteries of truth and wisdom. He will teach, not as those who learned certain arts and wisdom through study and industry, but as he who is himself art, teaching, and wisdom—the Spirit of Truth—who invisibly insinuates knowledge of divine things into the mind.
Gregory says: Unless the Holy Spirit is present in the hearer’s heart, the teacher’s speech is idle.
Augustine says: This must not be understood as though, when the Son teaches, we grasp the words, and when the Holy Spirit teaches, we understand the same words. For the whole Trinity speaks and teaches. But unless the Trinity were also commended person by person, human weakness could in no way grasp it at all.
“And he shall suggest to you all things whatsoever I shall have said to you.” Gregory says: The invisible Spirit is said to suggest, not because he introduces knowledge to us from below as an inferior, but because he does so from what is hidden.
Or, according to Augustine, “He shall suggest” means “He shall remind you.” For we must understand that our being commanded not to forget the most salutary admonitions pertains to the grace by which Christ reminds us.
Theophilus says: The Holy Spirit both taught and suggested, that is, reminded. He taught the things Christ had not said to them because they were not able to bear, that is, understand them. He reminded them of the things the Lord had said but which, because of their slowness of understanding, they had been unable to commit to memory.
Because, as Chrysostom says, on hearing these things they were troubled, reflecting upon the hatreds and wars that threatened them after his departure, he therefore consoles them again, saying: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.” Here he notes a threefold peace: internal, heavenly, and carnal.
Augustine says: He leaves peace to us in this age, in which while remaining we conquer the enemy, that is, the devil, and love one another. He will give us his peace in the future age, when he will reign without an enemy, where we shall never be able to disagree. He himself is peace for us, and we believe him to be as he is, and we shall see him as he is.
Notice that when he says, “Peace I leave with you,” he does not add “my,” but when he says, “Peace I give to you,” he says “my.” Although his could be said to be understood when he says, “Peace I leave with you,” nevertheless, according to Augustine, perhaps something also lies hidden here.
For he wished his peace to be understood as the kind he himself possesses, in which no sin whatsoever rebels, and which we shall therefore have in the future. But the peace he left us in this age should be called ours rather than his, because however perfect people may be, they always have something against which they struggle and on account of which they say, “Forgive us our debts.”
As to what he says, “Not as the world gives do I give to you”: that worldly peace belongs to those who love the world. They give themselves peace so that they may enjoy the world without disturbance, and when they give peace to the just so that they do not persecute them, it cannot be true peace where there is not true concord.
Chrysostom says that exterior peace is also often directed toward evil and profits those who possess it nothing. Augustine says: He who refuses to preserve the Lord’s testament will not be able to reach the Lord’s inheritance. Cyprian says: The guilt of discord is inexpiable and is not purged even by suffering. This is in Distinction 9.
Because he had said, “Peace I leave with you,” which belonged to one departing, and this could trouble them, he therefore comforts them, saying: “Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.”
Augustine says: Their heart could be troubled and afraid at this, lest during the interval when he withdrew from them—although he would return to them in the Resurrection—the wolf should attack in the shepherd’s absence.
Hence it follows: “You have heard that I go and come to you.” I go to death through the Passion; I come through the Resurrection. I go to the Father through the Ascension; I come through the mission of the Holy Spirit, and finally for your glorification.
So that his saying, “I go and come to you,” might be understood according to that by which he was human, he added: “If you loved me, you would indeed rejoice, because the Father is greater than I.” By that in which the Son was not equal to the Father, therefore, he was to go to the Father, from whom he is also to come to judge the living and the dead.
For by that in which he is equal to the one who begot him, he never withdraws from the Father, because he is one in essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, always existing everywhere and never abandoning his saints.
According to his humanity, therefore, Christ is less than the Father, less than the Holy Spirit, and less even than himself according to his divinity, because that humanity was formed by the whole Trinity: as regards the body, from the Virgin’s substance; as regards the soul, created by God in an instant and infused.
Nevertheless, both—namely humanity and divinity—are not two persons but one person, so that there may be no quaternity but God the Trinity. Therefore he said: “If you loved me, you would indeed rejoice.”
For according to Augustine we should rejoice on behalf of human nature because it was so assumed by the only-begotten Word that it was established immortal in heaven, and thus earth became so sublime that incorruptible dust sat at the Father’s right hand. Who does not rejoice here, if he loves Christ here, so as already to congratulate his own nature as immortal in Christ and to hope that he himself will become the same through Christ?
It follows: “And now I have told you these things before they occur, so that when they have occurred you may believe”—not with a new faith, but with an increased one; or certainly so that the faith which failed when he was dead might be restored when he rose.
Or: so that you may believe my divinity because so many things foretold and seen are fulfilled, even if in the risen one you see only his humanity.
“Now I shall not speak many things with you.” For the time was now at hand when he would be seized and killed. “For the prince of this world comes.” Augustine says: Who is this except the devil, who is prince not of creatures but of the sins of those who love the world?
“He comes,” that is, he will come to the cross when Christ suffers, ignorant that he is the Son of God, to see whether perhaps he might find any sin in him. “But in me,” Christ says, “he has nothing,” namely nothing of his own, because God had not come with sin, nor had the Virgin borne his flesh from the stock of sin.
And as though someone said to him, “Why, therefore, will you die if you have no sin to which the punishment of death is owed?”, he immediately adds: “But so that the world may know that I love the Father.” It is as though he said: For this reason I offer myself to death and shall endure a Passion that I do not owe, so that the world—that is, the people of the world—may know that I do this because of the love I possess for the Father.
This love is shown in the following deed: “As the Father has given me a commandment,” namely that I should undergo death for the redemption of the human race, “so I do,” namely by undergoing it.
§ II: On the Lord’s Prayer Offered by Jesus Christ, in Which He Fully Taught Us to Pray
Luke narrates this after relating that Christ was received as a guest by Martha, in whose house her sister Mary sat beside the Lord’s feet while Martha herself ministered what was necessary for the meal. Immediately afterward Luke adds: “It happened, when he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’ And he said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name,’” and so forth.
First it must be noted, according to Cyril, that Christ prayed not because he who existed full of every virtue lacked anything, but to furnish us an example of praying. According to Bede, he did this and taught prayer after the narration of the history of Martha and Mary receiving Christ, to signify that the perfection of the active and contemplative lives, which are designated in those women, can be obtained only by prayers.
Matthew, however, asserts that this Lord’s Prayer was issued by Christ and delivered to the Apostles on the mountain, where he gave them a lengthy discourse without any disciple’s questioning him. Matthew places seven petitions in it, whereas Luke expresses only five.
To harmonize these accounts, it can be said—as Augustine says concerning the beatitudes, since Matthew relates eight pronounced by the Lord and Luke four—that these were different sermons. For in the sermon on the mountain Jesus expressed the eight beatitudes Matthew relates, and in a level place, as Luke relates, while preaching to the crowds, he intimated only four to those less capable.
The same must be said concerning the Lord’s Prayer. On the mountain he expressed seven petitions without being questioned by anyone, as Matthew narrates. On another occasion afterward, when someone questioned him about the form of prayer, he taught it more briefly, as Luke relates.
And as Augustine also says, the third petition is included in the first two, and the final petition in the penultimate. Therefore Luke, intent upon brevity, took care not to place explicitly either the third, namely “Your will be done,” or the final one, “But deliver us from evil.” It is credible that Christ spoke some subjects of his teaching several times—to the disciples and crowds, sometimes at greater length and sometimes more briefly—as all teachers and preachers also do.
“Father, hallowed be your name.” Basil says: There are two modes of prayer. The first is praise with humility; the second is the more subdued mode of petition. Therefore, whenever you pray, do not first burst forth into petition. Otherwise you condemn your affection, because you approach God under the compulsion of necessity.
But when you begin to supplicate, leave behind every creature, visible and invisible alike. Begin with praise of the one who created all things. Hence he says: “When you pray, say: Father,” and so forth.
Augustine says in On the Words of the Lord: The first word is one of great grace. You did not dare raise your eyes to heaven, and suddenly you receive Christ’s grace. From an evil servant you have been made a good son. Therefore presume, not from your own activity, but from Christ’s grace. To proclaim what you have received is not arrogance but devotion, not pride but faith.
Therefore raise your eyes to the Father who begot you through the laver and redeemed you through the Son. Say “Father” as a son, but do not claim anything spiritually for yourself. For he is spiritually the Father of Christ alone, but he is the Father of us all in common, because he begot Christ alone according to divinity but created us. Therefore, according to Matthew, we say “our Father.”
Here it must also be noted that the whole prayer is framed in the plural, not the singular, namely for oneself alone or for any particular person, to signify, as Cyprian says, that one must pray not only for oneself but also for others.
And because, as Gratian says in On Penance, Distinction 1, “Each person is proved to be the son of the one whose works he performs,” as is evident from the Gospel, imitate him in works so that you may truly call him Father.
According to Matthew there follows what Luke omitted: “Who are in heaven.” Theophilus says: He does not say this as though God were circumscribed by place, but he raises the hearer toward the heavens and draws him away from earthly things.
Or, according to Augustine, he speaks of those of whom the Psalm says, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” that is, holy men. Or he is said to be in heaven through the manifestation of his glory, namely in the empyrean heaven.
Gregory of Nyssa says: The beginning of all good things is that God’s name be glorified in our life. Hence there follows: “Hallowed be your name.” This is the first petition. For who is so beastly that, on seeing a pure life among believers, he does not glorify the name invoked in such a life?
This prayer therefore says: May I, Father, with the aid of your concurrent assistance, become just and abstain from every evil.
Chrysostom says: Just as when someone looks upon the beauty of heaven he says, “Glory to you, God,” so also when he looks upon someone’s virtue, because a human being’s virtue glorifies God much more than heaven does.
Or, according to Augustine: “Hallowed be your name,” namely in us, so that its sanctification may be able to reach us.
Or, according to Titus: “Hallowed be your name,” that is, let your holiness be known to the whole world, and let it praise you fittingly. He therefore commanded us to pray for the purification of the whole world. And because the Father’s glory is in Jesus’s name, the Father’s name will then be hallowed when Christ is known.
Or, according to Origen: Because God’s name is attributed by those who err to statues and creatures, it is not yet hallowed, that is, separated from those things from which it ought to be separated. Therefore it is fitting for us to pray that God’s name be assigned to God alone.
“Your kingdom come.” This is the second petition, so that, according to Origen, principality, power, and the might of the kingdom of the world may be emptied, and sin may not reign even in our mortal bodies.
Or, according to Gregory of Nyssa: We also implore the Lord to be freed from corruption and released from death.
Or, according to some: “Your kingdom come,” that is, may your Holy Spirit come upon us and purify us.
Augustine says: God’s kingdom comes when we have obtained his grace, for he himself says, “The kingdom of God is within you.”
Or, according to Cyril: The person who says, “Your kingdom come,” seems to desire that the Savior of all shine again in the world. He commanded that this truly terrible time be asked for in prayer, so that people may know that he teaches them to live not carelessly but attentively, lest that time prepare punishment and flame for them.
According to Matthew there follows the third petition, which Luke omits: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Chrysostom says: It is as though he said: Grant us, Lord, to imitate the heavenly manner of life, so that whatever you wish, we also may wish.
Gregory of Nyssa says: He who says that human life after the Resurrection will be like the angelic life must consequently order worldly life toward the life hoped for afterward, so that while living in the flesh we do not live according to the flesh. Because we had departed from the divine will and for this reason had grown sick, our reunion with the divine will would free us anew from the disease.
Hence he says: “As in heaven, so on earth,” that is, as your will is done by the angels who are in heaven, so may it be done by us who are on earth.
Or: as it is done in the heaven of our intellective faculty, so may it be done in the earth of our sensitive faculty or body.
Cyprian says: How preposterous and perverse it is that, when we ask daily for God’s will to be done—namely by saying, “Your will be done”—we do not immediately obey the command of his will when he summons us from this age, but resist and struggle; and like unruly servants we are brought unwillingly before his sight, departing from here by the bond of necessity and not by the compliance of the will. This is in Cause 13, Question 2, canon Quam praeposterum.
“Your will be done,” namely by us, not only concerning us. For God’s will is certainly done concerning evil human beings, according to Gregory in the Moralia, namely what God has disposed concerning them, in accordance with Isaiah’s saying, “All my will shall be done.” But God’s will is not done by them, because they do not conform themselves to God’s will. God’s will is done by the good, however, because they voluntarily keep God’s precepts, through which God’s will is manifested to us.
And because, Augustine says, God’s name is hallowed in the spirit while God’s kingdom will come in the Resurrection, Luke omitted this third petition, wishing it to be understood in the preceding two.
There follows the fourth petition: “Give us today our daily bread.” Matthew says “substantial bread.” Augustine says: This is not the bread that passes into the body, but that bread of eternal life which sustains the substance of our soul. This is in On Consecration, Distinction 2, canon Quotidianum.
Augustine says: The Latin text has “daily.” If the bread is daily, why do you receive it after a year, as the Greeks in the East have been accustomed to do? The same author says in On Consecration, Distinction 2, canon Quotidie: Receive daily, so that it may profit you daily. Live in such a way that you may deserve to receive it daily. It is bread, not poison; it is medicine, the heavenly and venerable sacrament.
Or, according to Titus: The bread of souls is the divine power that brings the future everlasting life, just as bread proceeding from the earth preserves temporal life.
Or, according to Cyril, the sustenance of bodily life can be understood by daily bread. But because he commanded them to ask for bread, that is, daily nourishment, it appears that he allows them to possess nothing superfluous but rather to cultivate honorable poverty.
Chrysostom says: Therefore the necessities of life are to be requested, not varieties of foods, fragrant wines, and the other things that delight the throat but burden the belly and disturb the mind. Rather, ask for bread that can sustain the substance of our body, and as much as suffices us today, so that we may not be anxious about tomorrow. We ask for only one sensible petition, so that we may not be fastened to present things.
There follows the fifth petition: “Forgive us our debts.” Titus says: This is necessarily added because no one is found without sin, lest we be prevented from sacred participation because of human sins.
For since we are bound to exhibit every kind of holiness to Christ, who causes the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, we are to be reproved if we do not preserve a clean temple for him. This defect, however, is aided by God’s goodness, which is indulgent to human frailty.
This is justly done by a just God when we remit debts, as it were, to those who injured us and did not render what they owed. Hence it is added: “As we also forgive our debtors.”
Chrysostom says in On Penance, Distinction 3: For daily, brief, and light sins the daily prayer of the faithful, namely the Our Father, suffices, provided that we also forgive our debtors from the heart. For if we are wise, they become for us especially a cause of indulgence, and by offering a few things we shall find many. For we too owe the Lord many and great debts; if he wished to exact even the smallest part of them from us, we would already have perished.
Augustine says: What is a debt except sin? Therefore, if you had not received the money of another’s loan, you would not owe it; and so sin is imputed to you.
There follows the sixth petition: “And lead us not into temptation.” Augustine says: namely, a temptation we cannot bear; rather, he wills such a temptation as the human condition can bear.
Titus says: Not to be tempted by the devil is impossible, but we pray that we may not be abandoned by God in temptation. Unless he restrains the growing force of a temptation that is beyond us, he then leads us into temptation, but by permitting it.
Or, according to Maximus, the Lord commands us to ask, “Lead us not into temptation,” that is, do not permit us to suffer the experience of pleasurable and voluntary temptations. Concerning the temptations of afflictions and labors, however, James says: “Esteem it all joy, brothers, when you fall into diverse temptations.”
Basil says: Nevertheless, it is not fitting for us to ask in prayer for bodily afflictions, for he commanded us universally to pray not to enter into temptation. But after someone has entered it, it is expedient to ask the Lord for the strength to endure, so that in us may be consummated the saying, “He who endures to the end shall be saved.”
The final petition is: “But deliver us from evil.” Augustine says: Luke did not include this petition so that we may understand it to pertain to what was said immediately before, “And lead us not,” and so forth. Hence he does not say, “And deliver us,” but, “Deliver us from evil,” showing it to be one petition. It is as though he said: Do not do this, but do that, so that each person may know that he is delivered from evil when he is not led into temptation, that is, when he does not consent.
Or “from evil” means from the devil. Or it means from the evil of temporal tribulation that afflicts too greatly.
§ III: On Matters Pertaining to the Final Judgment and the Signs of His Coming, Which Christ Explained When the Apostles Questioned Him About Them
On the third weekday before the Passion, after Christ had taught the people many things through the parables Matthew writes in chapter 22 and had reproved the scribes and Pharisees for their manifold hypocrisy, as Matthew likewise sets forth in chapter 23, he finally went out of the Temple where he had been teaching. The disciples showed him the magnificence of that Temple’s building, one of them saying, as Mark relates: “Master, behold what stones and what structures.”
Christ answered them: “Amen I say to you, there shall not be left a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed.” This was fulfilled in the siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Roman princes Titus and Vespasian.
When Jesus departed from there and sat on the Mount of Olives with his disciples, the disciples questioned him, according to Matthew and Luke. Mark, however, indicates which disciples they were, namely Peter, James, John, and Andrew. They questioned him privately, saying: “Tell us when these things shall be, and what shall be the sign of your coming and of the consummation of the age?”
Because Christ had spoken about the destruction of the Temple, they doubted whether such a destruction would occur soon or at the consummation of the age. They questioned him about both, and Christ answered concerning both, sometimes about one and sometimes about the other.
For, foretelling the destruction to come upon the city and Temple, he says, as Luke relates: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by an army, then know that its desolation draws near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in its midst depart and not enter it,” namely seeking to be safer in the cities or in Jerusalem as though in a place protected by God.
Augustine says here that Luke records these words in this passage to show that the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel then occurred, about which Matthew and Mark spoke, when Jerusalem was conquered. Daniel notes this desolation at the end of chapter 9, where he also foretells the destruction of Jerusalem.
Bede says that ecclesiastical history relates that all the Christians who were in Judea, warned by the Lord of Jerusalem’s impending destruction, departed from the place and dwelt across the Jordan in a city called Pena [read: Pella] until the desolation of Judea was completed.
After a few words the Lord Jesus adds: “There shall be great distress upon the earth and wrath upon the people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, shall be led captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the nations are fulfilled.”
As to his saying, “Woe to those who are pregnant and nursing then,” some say, according to Theophilus, that the Lord signified the eating of their own children, which Josephus also narrates. Or it was because those so burdened could not depart quickly from such a siege.
The distress was then so great and such evils seized them that no misery afterward could equal their calamities, as Josephus writes. They fell by the edge of the sword when the Romans captured Jerusalem, but many were also killed by famine.
This first occurred under the princes Titus and Vespasian. Afterward, under the emperor Hadrian, their native soil was made inaccessible to the Jews by his command, as Eusebius says.
Ambrose says that mystically the abomination of desolation is the coming of Antichrist, because he pollutes the interiors of minds with ill-omened sacrileges, seats himself as God in the Temple in accordance with the history so as to claim for himself the throne of divine majesty, and disputes from the Scriptures that he is Christ.
Another antichrist is the devil, who strives to besiege Jerusalem—that is, the peaceful soul—with the army of his legion. Therefore, when the devil is in the midst of the temple, he is the desolation of abomination.
There is also a third antichrist, such as Arrius and Sabellius, who with evil intention seduce us all from the truth. These are Ambrose’s words.
Concerning the true and most wicked Antichrist, the Apostle says to the Thessalonians that “that wicked man, the son of perdition, shall be revealed, who is exalted above everything that is worshiped or is called God, so that he sits in the temple as though he were God,” whom Jesus shall kill with the breath of his mouth.
Christ says of him to the Jews: “I came in my Father’s name and you did not receive me; another shall come in his own name,” that is, seeking his own glory, namely Antichrist, “and you shall receive him,” namely as your Christ and Messiah.
He will come before the final judgment. There are many prophecies concerning him in the Old and New Testaments, especially in chapters 7 and 8 of Daniel and in the Apocalypse, and all the doctors write about this.
Concerning the final judgment itself and the consummation of the age, Christ foretold many things: first, the signs that precede it; second, the dangers then threatening; third, the things accompanying the judgment itself.
He intimates the preceding signs so that he may admonish people to prepare, because missiles foreseen strike less forcefully, and so that he may restrain them from love of the world, since at some time it will fail in the things viciously loved.
He sets down signs to come in the moon and stars, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke narrate, namely through their darkening beyond what is customary; in plagues, famines, and more frequent and greater earthquakes; in regions and kingdoms to be shaken by wars; and in the confusion of the sound of the sea and waves. From these evils human beings will wither, that is, waste away because of misery.
Second, the dangers threatening souls will be many errors that will then arise, especially the coming of Antichrist, who will fight against the true faithful with subtle and false teaching, rejecting evangelical doctrine and confirming his own with miracles—but false ones—as the Apostle says: “Whose coming is according to the operation of Satan in all lying wonders and signs.”
Christ says this about his preachers: “False prophets shall arise and shall produce wonders and great signs, so that, if it can be done, even the elect may be led into error.” If anyone does not believe in him, he will afflict that person with the most exquisite torments.
Hence Christ also says that “there shall be great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until then; and unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would be saved.” Christ also urges the faithful to prayer, to abstention from excessive worldly cares and pleasures, and to constancy.
Finally, third, he expresses the things accompanying the judgment. After the things foretold have been fulfilled, “they shall see the Son of Man sent forth, coming with great power,” namely to judge.
But first, as Matthew relates, he shall send his angels with a trumpet and a great voice to gather his elect from the four winds. They will separate the good from the evil, as is said in Matthew 13, because by divine power the resurrection of all the dead will occur after the world’s conflagration through fire sent from heaven, as the Psalm says: “Fire shall go before him.” By the ministry of the angels the ashes of the dead will be gathered.
Christ, coming in human form, will be seen by everyone. As Matthew relates, Jesus himself “shall place the sheep,” that is, the elect, “on the right, and the goats,” that is, the reprobate, “on the left.” To those who will be on the right he will say: “Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom,” and so forth. To those on the left, however: “Depart from me, accursed, into everlasting fire,” and so forth.
Concluding, he says: “These shall go”—namely those who aided neither themselves nor others in those works of mercy understood bodily and spiritually—“into everlasting punishment; but the just,” who performed them, “into eternal life.”
Therefore the Lord himself admonishes us to multiply spiritually the goods granted to us by him through the parable of the talents entrusted for trading; to avoid worldly glory in good works through the parable of the ten virgins, five foolish and five prudent; and moreover to keep watch, awaiting his coming prepared at the particular judgment of death, which is commonly unknown to us just as is the day of the universal judgment.
Hence he says of it: “But of that day no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son, except the Father.” This must be understood soundly. For since the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one knowledge just as they have one essence, Christ the Son of God certainly knows insofar as he is God. Even insofar as he is human, he knows it from the Word, but not as something to be revealed to us.
Although in its own time the coming of Antichrist may be known and believed to be near the final judgment, nevertheless no one knows with certainty, after Antichrist’s death, how long the world will remain in its present form.
But as Christ himself says, just as in the days of Noah, when the flood approached and although Noah announced it human beings did not believe but gave themselves to pleasures and vices, and suddenly and unexpectedly the flood came upon them and killed all except those preserved in the ark, so the coming of judgment will be sudden. In it only those who will be in the ark of the Church through the unity of charity shall be saved. This is in Cause 24, Question 1, canon Quia ex sola.
Christ notes this when he says: “Then there shall be two in one bed: one shall be taken and the other left; two women grinding at a mill: one shall be taken and the other left.” The bed signifies the state of rest of contemplatives; the field, the state of laboring prelates; the mill, the state of active persons. From all these, whoever will be in charity and the Church’s unity will be taken into the kingdom, but whoever is other—that is, different and divided from this unity—will be left in the infernal land.
Then the two elders grown old in evil days will be condemned, that is, the scribes and Pharisees who falsely accused most chaste Susanna, that is, the Church, of adultery, that is, of her union with Christ through faith. And the boy born to us, Daniel, that is, Jesus, will convict them and make their falsehood manifest to all: namely, that she had followed Christ, her lawful bridegroom, and had not adhered to any error, while they themselves, fornicating and causing the souls of the Jews to fornicate with them in false doctrines, will be judged for the fire. Gratian shows this in Cause 2, Question 7, § Item Daniel.