I. We have just heard in the holy Gospel the Lord speaking, and saying, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord, nor the apostle [he that is sent] greater than he that sent him: if ye know these things, blessed shall ye be if ye do them." He said this, thereforcj because He had washed the discii)les' feet, as the Master of humility both by word and example. But we shall be able, with His help, to handle what is in need of more elaborate handling, if we linger not at what is perfectly clear. Accordingly, after uttering these words, the Lord added, " I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but, that tiie Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me, ^Iiall lift up his heel upon me." And what is this, but that he shall trample upon me? We know of whom He speaks: it is Judas, that betrayer of His, who is referred to.
He had not therefore chosen the person whom, by these words, He setteth utterly apart from His chosen ones. When I say then, He continues, " Blessed shall ye be if ye do them, I speak not of you all:" there is one among you who will not be blessed, and who will not do these things. " I know whom I have chosen." Whom, but those who shall be blessed in the doing of what has been commanded and shown as needful to be done, by Him who alone can make them blessed? The traitor Judas, He says, is not one of those that have been chosen. What, then, is meant l)y what He says in anotiier place, " Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? " ' Was it that he also was chosen for some piu'pose, for which he was really necessary; although not for the blessedness of ' Chap. vi. 70.
?o8 [Tractate LIX.
which He has just been saying, " Blessed shall ye be if ye do these things"? He speaketh not so of them all; for He knows whom He has chosen to be associated with Himself in blessedness. Of such he is not one, who ate His bread in order that he might lift up his heel upon Him. The bread they ate was the Lord Himself; he ate the Lord's bread in enmity to the Lord: they ate life, and he punishment. " For he that eateth unworthily," says the apostle, " eateth judgment unto himself.^'' "From this time," - Christ adds, " I tell you before it come; that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He:" that is, 1 am He of whom the Scripture that preceded has just said, " He that eateth bread with me, shall lift up his heel upon me."
2. He then proceeds to say: "Verily, verily, I' say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me.'^ Did He mean us to understand that there is as little distance between one sent by Him, and Himself, as there is between Himiself and God the Father? If v\^e take it in this way, I know not what measurements of distance (which may God forbid!) we shall be adopting, in the Arian fashion. For they, when they hear or read these words of the Gospel, have immediate recourse to their dogmatic measurements, whereby they ascend not to life, but fall headlong into death. For they straightway say: The Son's messenger stands at the same relative distance from the Son, as expressed in the words, "He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me/' as that in which the Son Himself stands from the Father, when He said, " He that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me." But if thou sayest so, thou forgettest, heretic, thy measurements. For if, because of these v.'ords of the Lord, thou puttest the Son at as great a distance from the Father as the messenger [apostle] from the Son, where dost thou purpose to place the Holy Spirit? Has it escaped thee, that ye are wont to place Him after the Son? He will therefore come in between the messenger and the Son; and much greater, then, will be the distance between the Son and His messenger, than between the Father and His Son. Or perhaps, to preserve that distinction between the Son and His messenger, and between the Father and His Son, at their equality of distance, will the Holy Spirit be equal to the Son?
' I Cor. xi. 2Q.
2 --J iiiodo: Creek, 'Att' apTi; margin of English Bible, henceforth." — Tr.
From But as little will ye allow this. And where, then, do ye think of placing Him, if ye place the Son as far beneath the Father, as ye place the messenger beneath the Son? Restrain, therefore, your foolhardy presumption; and do not be seeking to find in these words the same distance between the Son and His messenger as between the Father and His So t. But listen rather to the Son Himself, when He says, " I and my Father are one." ^ For there the Truth hath left you no shadow of distance between the Begetter and the Onlybegotten; there Christ Himself hath erased your measurements, and the rock hath broken your staircase to pieces.
3. But now that the heretical slander has been disposed of, in what sense are we to jnderstand these words of the Lord: " He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me "? For if we were inclined to understand the words, " He that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me,'^ as expressing the oneness in nature of the Father and the Son; the sequence from the similar arrangement of words in the other clause, " He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me," would be the unity in nature of the Son and His messenger. And there might, indeed, be no impropriety in sO understanding it, seeing that a twofold substance belongeth to the strong man, who hath rejoiced to run the race; * for the Word was made flesh,^ that is, God became man. And accordingly He might be supposed to have said, " He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me," with reference to His human nature; "and he that receiveth me" as God, "receiveth Him that sent me." But in so speaking. He was not commending the unity of nature, but the authority of the Sender in Him who is sent. Let every one, therefore, so receive Him that is sent, that in His i^erson he may give heed to Him who sent Him, If, then, thou lookest for Christ in Peter, thou wilt find the disciple's instructor; and if thou lookest for the Father in the Son, thou wilt find the Begetter of the Only-begotten: and so in Him who is sent, thou art not mistaken in receiving the Sender. What follows in the Gospel cannot be compressed within the shortness of the time remaining. And therefore, dearly beloved, let what has been said, if thought sufficient, be received in a healthful way, as pasture for the holy sheep; and if it is somewhat scanty, let it be ruminated over with ardent desire for more. * 3«Chap. X. 30.
4.Ps. xix. 5.
5 Chap. i. 14.
Tractate LX.]
TRACTATE LX.
Chapter XIH. 21.
1. It is no light question, brethren, that meets us in the Gospel of the blessed John, when he says: "When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, A^'erily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." Was it for this reason that Jesus was troubled, not in flesh, but in spirit, that He was now about to say, "One of you shall betray me"? Did this occur then for the first time to His mind, or was it at that moment suddenly revealed to Him for the first time, and so troubled Him by the startling novelty of so great a calamity? Was it not a little before that He was using these words, " He that eateth bread with me will lift up his heel against me"? And had He not also, previously to that, said, "And ye are clean, but not all "? where the evangelist added, " For He knew who should betray Him:" ' to whom also on a still earlier occasion He had pointed in the words, " Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? " - Why is it, then, that He " was now troubled in spirit," when " He testified, and said. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me''? Was it because now He had so to mark him out, that he should no longer remain concealed among the rest, iMit l)e separated from the others, that therefore " He was troubled in spirit"? Or was it because now the traitor himself was on the eve of departing to bring those Jews to whom he was to betray the Lord, that He was troubled by the imminency of His passion, the closeness of the danger, and the swooping hand of the traitor, whose resolution was foreknown? For some such cause it certainly was that Jesus " was troubled in spirit," as when He said, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour." ^ And accordingly, just as then His soul was troubled as the hour of His passion approached; so now also, as Judas was on the point of going and coming, and the atrocious villainy of the traitor neared its accomplishment, "He was troubled in spirit."
2. He was troubled, then, who had power to lay down His life, and had power to take it again." That mighty power is troubled, the firmness of the rock is disturbed: or is it rather our infirmity that is troubled in Him? Assuredly so: let servants believe nothing unworthy of their Lord, but recognize their own membership in their Head. He who died for us, was also Himself troubled in our place. He, therefore, who died in power, was troubled in the midst of His power: He who shall yet transform ^ the body of our humility into similarity of form with the body of His glory, hath also transferred into Himself the feeling of our infirmity, and sympathizeth with us in the feelings of His own soul. Accordingly, when it is the great, the brave, the sure, the invincible One that is troubled, let us have no fear for Him, as if He were capable of failing: He is not perishing, but in search of us [who are]. Us, I say; it is us exclusively whom He is thus seeking, that in His trouble we may behold ourselves, and so, when trouble reaches us, may not fall into despair and perish. By His trouble, who could not be troubled save with His own consent. He comforts such as are troubled unwillingly.
3. Away with the reasons of philosophers, who assert that a wise man is not affected by mental perturbations. God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world; '^ and the Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain.' It is plain that the mind of the Christian may be troubled, not by misery, but by pity: he may fear lest men should be lost to Christ; he may sorrow when one is ]:)eing lost; he may have ardent desire to gain men to Christ; he may be filled with joy when such is being done; he may have fear of falling away himself from Christ; he may sorrow over his own estrangement from Christ; he may be earnestly desirous of reigning with Christ, and he may be rejoicing in the hope that such fellowship with Christ will yet be his lot. These are certainly four of what they call perturbations — fear and sorrow, love and gladness. And Christian minds may have sufficient cause to feel them, and evidence their dissent from the error of Stoic philosophers, and all resembling them: who indeed, just as they esteem truth to be vanity, regard 5 Phil. iii. 21. The text has transfit:ura-:'!t (pret.), "hath transformed," in this as well as in the next clause, " hath transferred," but here it is evidently a misprint fur tniHsfigural'lt (fllt.).-TK.
lO [Tractate I-XI.
also insensibility as soundness; not knowing that a man's mind, like the limbs of his body, is only the more hopelessly diseased when it has lost even the feeling of pain.
4. But says some one: Ought the mind of the Christian to be troubled even at the prospect of death? For what comes of those words of the apostle, that he had a desire to depart, and to be with Christ,' if the object of his desire can thus trouble him when it comes? Our answer to this would be easy, indeed, in the case of those who also term gladness itself a perturbation [of the mind]. For what if the trouble he thus feels arises entirely from his rejoicing at the prospect of death? But such a feeling, they say, ought to be termed gladness, and not rejoicing. = And what is that, but just to alter the name, while the feeling experienced is the same? But let us for our part confine our attention to the Sacred Scriptures, and with the Lord's help seek rather such a solution of this question as will be in harmony with them; and then, seeing it is written, " When He had thus said, He was troubled in spirit," we will not say that it was joy that disturbed Him; lest His own words should convince us of the contrary when He says, "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." ^ It is some such feeling that is here also to be understood, when, as His betrayer was now on the very point of departing alone, and straightway returning along with his associates, " Jesus was troubled in spirit."
5. Strong-minded, indeed, are those Christians, if such there are, who experience no trouble at all in the prospect of death; but for all that, are they stronger-minded than Christ? Who would have the madness to say so? And what else, then, does His being » Phil. i. 23.
Gaudium, non Icetitia. 3 Matt. x.xvi. 38.
troubled signify, but that, by voluntarily assuming the likeness of their weakness, He comforted the weak members in His own body, that is, in His Church; to the end that, if any of His own are still troubled at the approach of death, they may fix their gaze upon Him, and so be kept from thinking themselves castaways on this account, and being swallowed up in the more grievous death of despair? And how great, then, must be that good which we ought to expect and hope for in the participation of His divine nature, whose very perturbation tranquillizes us, and whose infirmity confirms us? Whether, therefore, on this occasion it was by His pity for Judas himself thus rushing into ruin, or by the near approach of His own death, that He was troubled, yet there is no possibility of doubting that it was not through any infirmity of mind, but in the fullness of power, that He was troubled, and so no despair of salvation need arise in our minds, when we are troubled, not in the possession of power, but in the midst of our weakness. He certainly bore the infirmity of the flesh, — an infirmity which was swallowed up in His resurrection. But He who was not only man, but God also, surpassed by an ineffable distance the whole human race in fortitude of mind. He was not, then, troubled by any outward pressure of man, but troubled Himself; which was very plainly declared of Him when He raised Lazarus from the dead: for it is there written that He troubled Himself," that it may be so understood even where the text does not so express it, and yet declares that He was troubled. For having by His power assumed our full humanity, by that very power He awoke in Himself our human feelings whenever He judged it becoming.
4 Chap. xi. 33, margin.
TRACTATE LXL Chapter XHL 21-26.
I. This short section of the Gospel, brethren, we have in this lesson brought forward for exposition, as thinking that we ought also to say something of the Lord's ]:)etrayer, as now plainly enough disclosed by the dipping and holding out to him of the piece of bread. Of that indeed which precedes, (namely), that Jesus, when about to point him out, was troubled in spirit, we have treated in our last discourse; but what I perhaps omitted to, mention there, the Lord, by His own perturbation of spirit, thought proper to indicate this also, that it is necessary to bear with false brethren, and those tares that are among the wheat in the Lord's field until harvesttime, because that when we are compelled by Tractate LXI.]
ON XHE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
,11 urgent reasons to separate some of them even before the harvest, it cannot be done without disturbance to the Church. Such disturbance to His saints in the future, through schismatics and heretics, the Lord in a way foretold and prefigured in Himself, when, at the moment of that wicked man judas' departure, and of his thereby bringing to an end, in a very open and decided way, his past intermingling with the wheat, in which he had long been tolerated, He was troubled, not in body, but in spirit. For it is not spitefulness, but charity, that troubles His spiritual members in scandals of this kind; lest perchance, in separating some of the tares, any of the wheat should also be uprooted therewith.
2. "Jesus," therefore, "was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said: Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." "One of you," in number, not in merit; in appearance, not in reality; in bodily commingling, not by any spiritual tie; a companion by fleshly juxtaposition, not in any unity of the heart; and therefore not one who is of you, but one who is to go forth from you. For how else can this "one of you " be true, of which the Lord so testified, and said, if that is true which the writer of this very Gospel says in his Epistle, " They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us "? ' Judas, therefore, was not of them; for, had he been of them, he would have continued with them. What, then, do the words " One of you shall betray me" mean, but that one is going out from you who shall betray me? Just as he also, who said, " If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us," had said before, "They went out from us." And thus it is true in both senses, "of us," and " not of us; " in one respect " of us," and in another " not of us;" " of us " in respect to sacramental communion, but " not of us " in respect to the criminal conduct that belongs exclusively to themselves.
3. " Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom He spake." For while they were imbued with a reverential love to their Master, they were none the less affected by human infirmity in their feelings towards each other. Each one's own conscience was known to himself; but as he was ignorant of his neighbor's, each one's selfassurance was such that each was uncertain of all the others, and all the others were uncertain of that one.
4. "Now there was leaning on Jesus' ' I John ii. 19.
bosom, one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." What he meant by saying "in His bosom," he tells us a little further on, where he says, "on the breast of Jesus." It was that very John whose Gospel is before us, as he afterwards expressly declares. = For it was a custom with those who have supplied us with the sacred writings, that when any of them was relating the divine history, and came to something affecting himself, he spoke as if it were about another; and gave himself a place in the line of his narrative becoming one who was the recorder of public events, and not as one who made himself the subject of his preaching. Saint Matthew acted also in this way, when, in coming in the course of his narrative to himself, he says, " He saw a publican named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, and saith unto him, Follow me. "3 He does not say. He saw me, and said to me. So also acted the blessed Moses, writing all the history about himself as if it concerned another, and saying, " The Lord said unto Moses."'' Less habitually was this done by the Apostle Paul, not however in any history which undertakes to explain the course of public events, but in his own epistles. At all events, he speaks thus of himself: " I knew a man in Christ fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up into the third heaven. "s And so, when the blessed evangelist also says here, not, I was leaning on Jesus' bosom, but, " There was leaning one of the disciples," let us recognize a custom of our author's, rather than fall into any wonder on the subject. For what loss is there to the truth, when the facts themselves are told us, and all boastfulness of language is in a measure avoided? For tiuis at least did he relate that which most signally pertained to his praise.
5. But what mean the words, " whom Jesus loved "? As if He did not love the others, of whom this same John has said above, " He loved them to the end'' (ver. i); and as the Lord Himself, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay tlown his life for his friends." And who could enumerate all the testimonies of the sacred pages, in which the Lord Jesus is exhibited as the lover, not only of this one, or of those who were then around Him, but of such also as were to be His members in the distant future, and of His universal Churcli? But there is some truth, doubtless, underlying these words, and having reference to the bosom on which tlie narrator was leaning. For what else can be in- ' Chap. xxi. 20-24. 4 Ex. vi. I.
31- [Tractate LXII.
dicated by the bosojji but some hidden truth? But there is another more suitable passage, where the Lord may enable us to say something about this secret that may prove sufificient.
6. " Simon Peter therefore beckons, and says to him." ' The expression is noteworthy, as indicating that something was said not by any sound of words, but by merely beckoning with the head. " He beckons, and says; " that is, his beckoning is his speech. For if one is said to speak in his thoughts, as Scripture saith, " They said [reasoned] with themselves;"^ how much more may he do so by 1 The original Mss. give different readings of this verse. That followed by our English version |s supported by the Codd. Alex, and Cantabr., which read, Neuei o5i' touto) 2i|au)v neTp05 TrvSeaSai Ti's o-v €11) TTipl oil Ae-yet. The Latin version used lay Augustin reads, Ijinuit ergo Simon Petrus, et dicit ei, Qiiis est de quo dicit^ and approaches nearly to that found in the Codd. Vat. and Ephr., which read, Neiiei ovv toutw 2. 11., kixi Ae-yet auTw, EiTre Ti's icTTiv Trepi oil Ae'yct — " Siinon Peter therefore beckons to this one, and says to him, Say [ask], who is it of whom He speaks?" Of the early versions, the Syriac adopts the former, while the Vulgate resembles the latter. The Sinaitic gives a fuller reading, compounded of both the others. There is thus some doubt as to the original text; but the latter has.some special arguments of an internal kind in its favor: such as the consideration that, from its peculiar and somewhat redundant form, it could hardly have been substituted in place of the former, which is smoother and more elegant, while the converse is perfectly supposable; and also the weighty fact that John nowhere else makes use of the optative mood, as he would here (ti's av eii)), if the former reading — that followed by our English version — were the true one. — Tk.
2 Wisd. of Sol. ii. i.
I beckoning, which expresses outwardly by : some sort of signs what had previously been ' conceived within! What, then, did his beckoning mean? What else but that which follows? "Who is it of whom He speaks?" Such was the language of Peter's beckoning; for it was by no vocal sounds, but by bodily gestures, that he spake. " He then, having leaned back on Jesus' breast," — surely the very bosom ^ of His breast this, the secret place of wisdom! — " saith unto Him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered. He it is to whom I shall give a piece of bread, when I have dipped it. And when He had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the bread, Satan entered into him.'' The traitor was disclosed, the coverts of darkness were revealed. What he got was good, but to his own hurt he received it, because, evil himself, in an evil spirit he received what was good. But we have much to say about that dipped bread which was presented to the false-hearted disciple, and about that which follows; and for these we shall require more time than remains to us now at the close of this discourse.
3 Pectoris sinus; the hollow, the inmost part of the breast.
TRACTATE LXII.
Chapter XHI. 26-31.
I. I KNOW, dearly beloved, that some may be moved, as the godly to inquire into the meaning of, and the ungodly to find fault with, the statement, that it was after the Lord had given the bread, that had been dipped, to His betrayer that Satan entered into him. For so it is written: "And when He had dipped the bread. He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the Son of Simon, And after the bread, then entered Satan into him." For they say, Was this the worth of Christ's bread, given from Christ's own table, that after it Satan should enter into His disciple? And the answer we give them is, that thereby we are taught rather how much we need to beware of receiving what is good in a sinful spirit. For the point of special importance is, not the thing that is received, but the person that receives it; and not the character of the thing that is given, but of him to whom it is given. For even good things are hurtful, and evil things are beneficial, according to the character of the recipients. "Sin," says the apostle, "that it might appear sin, wrought death to me by that which is good." ' Thus, you see, evil is brought about by the good, so long as that which is good is wrongly received. It is he also that says: " Lest I should /be exalted unduly through the greatness of my revelations, there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me. For which thing I besought the Lord thrice, that He would take it away from me; and He said unto me. My grace is sufficient for thee: for strength is made perfect in weakness."^ And here, you see, good was brought about by that which was evil, when the evil was received in a good spirit. Why, then, do we wonder if Christ's bread was given to Judas, that thereby he should be made over to the devil; when we see, on the other hand, that Paul was visited by a messenger of the devil.
I Rom. vii. 13.
2 2 Cor. xii. 7-9.
Tractate LXII.]
O ^3 that by such an instrumentality he might be perfected in Christ? In this way, both the good was injurious to the evil man, and the evil was beneficial to the good. Bear in mind the meaning of the Scripture, " Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."' And when the apostle said this, he was dealing with those who were taking the body of the Lord, like any other food, in an undiscerning and careless spirit. If, then, he is thus taken to task who does not discern, that is, does not distinguish from the other kinds of food, the body of the Lord, what condemnation must be his, who in the guise of a friend comes as an enemy to His table! If negligence in the guest is thus visited with blame, what must be the punishment that will fall on the man that sells the very person who has invited him to his table! And why was the bread given to the traitor, but as an evidence of the grace he had treated with ingratitude?
2. It was after this bread, then, that Satan entered into the Lord's betrayer, that, as now given over to his power, he might take full possession of one into whom before this he had only entered in order to lead him into error. For we are not to suppose that he was not in him when he went to the Jews and bargained about the price of betraying the Lord; for the evangelist Luke very plainly attests this when he says: " Then entered Satan into Judas, who was surnamed Iscariot, being one of the twelve; and he went his way, and communed with the chief priests."^ Here, you see, it is shown that Satan had already entered into Judas. His first entrance, therefore, was when he implanted in his heart the thought of betraying Clirist; for in such a spirit had he already come to the supper. But now, after the bread, he entered into him, no longer to tempt one who belonged to another, but to take possession of him as liis own.
3, But it was not then, as some thoughtless readers suppose, tliat Judas received tlie body of Christ, For we are to understand that the Lord had already dispensed to all of them the sacrament of His body and blood, when Judas also was present, as very clearly related by Saint Luke;^ and it was after this that we come to the moment when, in accordance with John's account, the Lord made a full disclosure of His betrayer by dipping and holding out to him the morsel of bread, and intimating perhaps by the dipping of the bread the false pretensions of the other. For