Homilies on John, Homily 80

“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that Your Son also may glorify You.” [1.] “Whoever has done and taught,” it says, “will be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.” And with good reason: showing true wisdom in words is easy, but proving it through actions takes someone noble and great. That is why Christ, when speaking about enduring evil, presents Himself as our example and tells us to follow Him. For this reason, too, after this instruction He turns to prayer, teaching us to leave everything and flee to God in our trials. Because He had said, “In the world you will have tribulation,” and had shaken their souls, He lifts them up again through prayer. They still listened to Him as a man, and He acts this way for their sake, just as He did in the case of Lazarus, where He explains the reason: “I said it because of the people standing here, so that they might believe that You have sent Me.” ( c. xi. 42.) “Yes,” someone says, “there was good reason for this in the case of the Jews; but why in the case of the disciples?” There was good reason in the case of the disciples too. Those who, after everything that had been said and done, said, “Now we know that You know” ( c. xvi. 30 ), especially needed to be strengthened. Besides, the Evangelist does not even call the action prayer. What does he say? “He lifted up His eyes to heaven,” describing it instead as a conversation with the Father. And if elsewhere he speaks of prayer, showing Him at one time kneeling and at another lifting His eyes to heaven, do not be troubled. Through these things we learn how earnest our petitions should be: when standing, we should look up, with the eyes of the mind as well as those of the flesh, and we should bend our knees, breaking our own hearts. For Christ came not merely to reveal Himself, but also to teach virtue beyond words. A teacher must teach through actions as well as words. Let us hear, then, what He says here. “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that Your Son also may glorify You.” Again He shows us that He goes to the Cross willingly. How could He be unwilling, when He prayed for this to happen and called the act “glory,” not only for Himself, the One crucified, but also for the Father? For this was indeed the case: the Father as well as the Son was glorified. Before the Crucifixion, not even the Jews knew Him: “Israel,” it says, “has not known Me” ( Isa. i. 3 ); but after the Crucifixion, the whole world ran to Him. Then He also speaks about the manner of this glory and how He will glorify Him. Ver. 2. “As You have given Him authority over all flesh,” “so that nothing You have given Him should perish.” For always doing good brings glory to God. But what does “As You have given Him authority over all flesh” mean? He now shows that the preaching is not limited to the Jews alone, but extends to the whole world, and He prepares the way for the first invitations to the Gentiles. Since He had said, “Do not go among the Gentiles” ( Matt. x. 5 ), and is later going to say, “Go and make disciples of all nations” ( Matt. xxviii. 19 ), He shows that the Father also wills this. For this deeply offended the Jews, and the disciples too. Even afterward, they did not readily agree to reach out to the Gentiles until they received the teaching of the Spirit, because this created a serious stumbling block for the Jews. That is why, when Peter came to Jerusalem after such a manifestation of the Spirit, he barely escaped the accusations against him by describing the vision of the sheet. But what does “You have given Him authority over all flesh” mean? I will ask the heretics, “When did He receive this authority? Before He formed them, or afterward?” He himself says that it was after He had been crucified and had risen again; at any rate, that was when He said, “All authority has been given to Me” ( Matt. xxviii. 18 ), and, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” What then? Did He have no authority over His own works? Did He make them, yet have no authority over them after making them? Yet we see Him doing everything in ancient times, punishing some as sinners (for it says, “Surely I will not hide from My servant Abraham what I am about to do”— Gen. xviii. 17 , LXX.,) and honoring others as righteous. Did He have authority then, lose it now, and receive it again? What devil could claim this? But if His authority was the same then as now (for He says, “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomever He wills”— c. v. 21 ,), what do these words mean? He was about to send them to the Gentiles. So, to keep them from thinking this was something new, because He had said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” ( Matt. xv. 24 ), He shows that this also seems good to the Father. And it is no wonder that He says this in such lowly terms. In this way He built up both those present then and those who came afterward. As I have said before, by speaking in such extremely lowly terms, He always firmly convinced them that His words were an accommodation to their weakness. [2.] But what does “Of all flesh” mean? Certainly not everyone believed. Yet, as far as His part was concerned, everyone believed; and if people paid no attention to His words, the fault lay with those who did not accept them, not with the teacher. “So that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.” If here too He speaks in a more human way, do not be surprised. He does so both for the reasons I have given and to avoid saying anything great about Himself, since this was a stumbling block to His hearers, who still had no great conception of Him. John, for example, when speaking for himself, does not do this, but uses more exalted language, saying, “All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made” ( c. i. 3, 4, 9, 11 ); and that He was “Life”; and that He was “Light”; and that “He came to His own.” He does not say that He would have had no authority unless He had received it, but that He also gave others “authority to become sons of God.” Paul likewise calls Him equal with God. ( Philip. ii. 6.) But He Himself asks in a more human way, saying, “So that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.” ( John xvii. 2.) Ver. 3. “And this is eternal life, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” He says “The only true God” to distinguish Him from those who are not gods, for He was about to send them to the Gentiles. But if they will not accept this, and because of the word “only” deny that the Son is true God, by following this line of reasoning they deny that He is God at all. For He also says, “You do not seek the glory that comes from the only God.” ( c. v. 44.) Well then, will the Son not be God? But if the Son is God, and the Son of the Father who is called the Only God, it is clear that He too is true, and the Son of Him who is called the Only true God. Why, when Paul says, “Or only Barnabas and I” ( 1 Cor. ix. 6 ), does he exclude Barnabas? Not at all; “only” is used to distinguish them from others. And if He is not true God, how is He “Truth”? For truth far surpasses what is true. Tell me, what shall we call not being a “true” man? Shall we not call it not being a man at all? So if the Son is not true God, how is He God? And how does He make us gods and sons if He is not true? But we have discussed these matters in greater detail elsewhere, so let us turn to what follows. Ver. 4. “I have glorified You on the earth.” He rightly said, “on the earth,” for in heaven He had already been glorified, possessing His own natural glory and being worshiped by the Angels. Christ, then, is not speaking about the glory inseparable from His Essence (for He always possesses that glory in its fullness, even if no one glorifies Him), but about the glory that comes from human service. So “Glorify Me” also refers to this kind of glory. To understand that He is speaking about glory of this kind, listen to what follows. “I have finished the work You gave Me to do.” And yet the action was only beginning, or rather, had not yet begun. How, then, did He say, “I have finished”? Either He means, “I have done everything that was Mine to do”; or He speaks of the future as though it had already happened; or, most likely, He means that everything had already been accomplished because the root of blessings had been planted, whose fruits would certainly and necessarily follow, and because He would be present and help in the things that would happen afterward. This is why He again accommodates His words to their weakness by saying, “Which You gave Me.” For if He had actually waited to hear and learn, this would have fallen far short of His glory. Many passages make it clear that He willingly came to His death. For example, Paul says that “He so loved us that He gave Himself for us” ( Eph. v. 2 ); and, “He emptied Himself and took the form of a servant” ( Philip. ii. 7 ); and, “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.” ( c. xv. 9.) Ver. 5. “And now, Father, glorify Me with Your Own Self, with the glory I had with You before the world existed.” Where is that glory? Even if we grant that He was understandably without honor among people because of the covering placed around Him, how does He ask to be glorified with the Father? What, then, does He mean here? The saying refers to the Dispensation, since His fleshly nature had not yet been glorified: it had not yet enjoyed incorruption or shared the kingly throne. That is why He did not say “on earth,” but “with You.” [3.] We too will enjoy this glory according to our measure, if we remain watchful. That is why Paul says, “If indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified together.” ( Rom. viii. 17.) Those who undermine themselves through laziness and sleep when such glory is set before them deserve ten thousand tears. Even if there were no hell, they would be more miserable than anyone, since they deprive themselves of such great blessings when they have the power to reign and be glorified with the Son of God. For if we had to be cut to pieces, die ten thousand deaths, or give up ten thousand lives and as many bodies every day, should we not submit to these things for such glory? But as it is, we do not even despise money, which we will someday leave behind whether we want to or not. We do not despise money, which brings ten thousand troubles upon us, which stays here, which is not our own. For we are only stewards of what is not our own, even if we receive it from our fathers. But when there is also hell, and the worm that does not die, and the fire that is not quenched, and the gnashing of teeth, tell me, how will we bear these things? How long will we refuse to see clearly and spend everything we have on daily fights, disputes, and useless talk, eating, cultivating the earth, fattening the body and neglecting the soul, disregarding necessary things while taking great care over things that are unnecessary and useless? We build splendid tombs, buy expensive houses, surround ourselves with herds of servants of every kind, and devise different positions for stewards, appointing managers of lands, houses, and money, and managers of those managers. But we care nothing for our desolate soul. Where will this end? Is it not one belly that we fill, one body that we clothe? What is all this frantic business? Why, for what purpose, do we cut up and tear to pieces the one soul assigned to us by devoting ourselves to serving such things, creating a harsh slavery for ourselves? For whoever needs many things is the slave of many things, even if he seems to be their master. The master is even the slave of his household servants, bringing another, heavier form of slavery upon himself. He is their slave in another way too: he does not dare enter the agora, the bath, or the field without them, while they often go everywhere without him. The man who seems to be master does not dare leave home unless his slaves are present, and if he so much as puts his head outside his house without an attendant, he thinks people are laughing at him. Perhaps some laugh at us for saying this, yet for this very reason they deserve ten thousand tears. To show that this is slavery, I would gladly ask you: would you want to need someone to put a bite of food into your mouth and hold a cup to your lips? Would you not think such service a reason for tears? What if you constantly needed people to support you so that you could walk? Would you not think yourself pitiable, and in this respect more miserable than anyone? That is how you should feel now. For it makes no difference whether you are treated this way by things without reason or by people. Tell me, do not the Angels differ from us in this respect, that they do not need as many things as we do? So the less we need, the further we advance toward them; the more we need, the further we sink into this perishable life. To learn that this is true, ask those who have grown old which life they think happier: when they were helplessly mastered by these things, or now, when they are their masters? We have mentioned these people because those intoxicated with youth do not even recognize how extreme their slavery is. What about people with a fever? Do they call themselves happy when their great thirst makes them drink a great deal and need still more, or when they have recovered their health and are free from the desire? Do you see that in every case needing much is pitiable, far removed from true wisdom, and makes slavery and desire worse? Why, then, do we willingly make ourselves more miserable? Tell me, if it were possible to live unharmed without a roof or walls, would you not prefer it? Why, then, do you multiply the signs of your weakness? Is this not why we call Adam happy, because he needed nothing, no house, no clothes? “Yes,” someone says, “but now we need them.” Why, then, do we increase our need? If many people cut back on many things that are actually needed (servants, I mean, and houses, and money), what excuse can we have for going beyond our needs? The more you surround yourself with, the more enslaved you become, for your freedom decreases in proportion to the increase in your needs. Complete freedom means needing nothing at all; the next best thing is needing little. The Angels and those who imitate them possess this especially. But consider how much praise people deserve when they achieve this while living in a mortal body. Paul said this too when he wrote to the Corinthians, “But I spare you,” and, “so that such people should not have trouble in the flesh.” ( 1 Cor. vii. 28.) Riches are called “usables” so that we may “use” them rightly, rather than hoard and bury them; for that means being possessed by them instead of possessing them. If we make it our aim to multiply them, instead of using them rightly, the order is reversed: they possess us, and we do not possess them. Let us free ourselves from this harsh bondage and at last become free. Why do we devise ten thousand different chains for ourselves? Aren’t the bond of nature, the necessities of life, and the demands of ten thousand affairs enough for you? Must you also weave other nets for yourself and wrap them around your feet? When will you take hold of heaven and be able to stand at that height? For it is a great thing, a great thing, if even after cutting all these cords you can take hold of the city above. There are so many other obstacles. To overcome them all, let us live modestly [and having put away superfluities, let us keep to what is necessary.] In this way we will take hold of eternal life, through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.