Tractate 80 (John 15:1-3)

1. This passage of the Gospel, brethren, where the Lord calls Himself the vine, and His disciples the branches, declares in so many words that the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2:5 is the head of the Church, and that we are His members. For as the vine and its branches are of one nature, therefore, His own nature as God being different from ours, He became man, that in Him human nature might be the vine, and we who also are men might become branches thereof. What mean, then, the words, I am the true vine? Was it to the literal vine, from which that metaphor was drawn, that He intended to point them by the addition of true? For it is by similitude, and not by any personal propriety, that He is thus called a vine; just as He is also termed a sheep, a lamb, a lion, a rock, a corner-stone, and other names of a like kind, which are themselves rather the true ones, from which these are drawn as similitudes, not as realities. But when He says, I am the true vine, it is to distinguish Himself, doubtless, from that [vine] to which the words are addressed: How are you turned into sourness, as a strange vine? Jeremiah 2:21 For how could that be a true vine which was expected to bring forth grapes and brought forth thorns? Isaiah 5:4

2. I am, He says, the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears not fruit, He takes away; and every one that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Are, then, the husbandman and the vine one? Christ is the vine in the same sense as when He said, The Father is greater than I; but in that sense wherein He said, I and my Father are one, He is also the husbandman. And yet not such a one as those, whose whole service is confined to external labor; but such, that He also supplies the increase from within. For neither is he that plants anything, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase. But Christ is certainly God, for the Word was God; and so He and the Father are one: and if the Word was made flesh — that which He was not before — He nevertheless still remains what He was. And still more, after saying of the Father, as of the husbandman, that He takes away the fruitless branches, and prunes the fruitful, that they may bring forth more fruit, He straightway points to Himself as also the purger of the branches, when He says, Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Here, you see, He is also the pruner of the branches — a work which belongs to the husbandman, and not to the vine; and more than that, He makes the branches His workmen. For although they give not the increase, they afford some help; but not of themselves: For without me, He says, ye can do nothing. And listen, also, to their own confession: What, then, is Apollos, and what is Paul? But ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. I have planted, Apollos watered. And this, too, as the Lord gave to every man; and so not of themselves. In that, however, which follows, but God gave the increase, 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 He works not by them, but by Himself; for work like that exceeds the lowly capacity of man, transcends the lofty powers of angels, and rests solely and entirely in the hands of the Triune Husbandman. Now you are clean, that is, clean, and yet still further to be cleansed. For, had they not been clean, they could not have borne fruit; and yet every one that bears fruit is purged by the husbandman, that he may bring forth more fruit. He bears fruit because he is clean; and to bear more, he is cleansed still further. For who in this life is so clean as not to be in need of still further and further cleansing? Seeing that, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness; to cleanse in very deed the clean, that is, the fruitful, that they may be so much the more fruitful, as they have been made the cleaner.

3. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Why does He not say, You are clean through the baptism wherewith you have been washed, but through the word which I have spoken unto you, save only that in the water also it is the word that cleanses? Take away the word, and the water is neither more nor less than water. The word is added to the element, and there results the Sacrament, as if itself also a kind of visible word. For He had said also to the same effect, when washing the disciples' feet, He that is washed needs not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. And whence has water so great an efficacy, as in touching the body to cleanse the soul, save by the operation of the word; and that not because it is uttered, but because it is believed? For even in the word itself the passing sound is one thing, the abiding efficacy another. This is the word of faith which we preach, says the apostle, that if you shall confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:10 Accordingly, we read in the Acts of the Apostles, Purifying their hearts by faith; Acts 15:9 and, says the blessed Peter in his epistle, Even as baptism does also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience. This is the word of faith which we preach, whereby baptism, doubtless, is also consecrated, in order to its possession of the power to cleanse. For Christ, who is the vine with us, and the husbandman with the Father, loved the Church, and gave Himself for it. And then read the apostle, and see what he adds: That He might sanctify it, cleansing it with the washing of water by the word. Ephesians 5:25-26 The cleansing, therefore, would on no account be attributed to the fleeting and perishable element, were it not for that which is added, by the word. This word of faith possesses such virtue in the Church of God, that through the medium of him who in faith presents, and blesses, and sprinkles it, He cleanses even the tiny infant, although itself unable as yet with the heart to believe unto righteousness, and to make confession with the mouth unto salvation. All this is done by means of the word, whereof the Lord says, Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Tractate 81 (John 15:4-7)

1. Jesus called Himself the vine, and His disciples the branches, and His Father the husbandman; whereon we have already discoursed as we were able. But in the present passage, while still speaking of Himself as the vine, and of His branches, or, in other words, of the disciples, He said, Abide in me, and I in you. They are not in Him in the same kind of way that He is in them. And yet both ways tend to their advantage, and not to His. For the relation of the branches to the vine is such that they contribute nothing to the vine, but from it derive their own means of life; while that of the vine to the branches is such that it supplies their vital nourishment, and receives nothing from them. And so their having Christ abiding in them, and abiding themselves in Christ, are in both respects advantageous, not to Christ, but to the disciples. For when the branch is cut off, another may spring up from the living root; but that which is cut off cannot live apart from the root.

2. And then He proceeds to say: As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except ye abide in me. A great encomium on grace, my brethren — one that will instruct the souls of the humble, and stop the mouths of the proud. Let those now answer it, if they dare, who, ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Romans 10:3 Let the self-complacent answer it, who think they have no need of God for the performance of good works. Fight they not against such a truth, those men of corrupt mind, reprobate concerning the faith, 2 Timothy 3:8 whose reply is only full of impious talk, when they say: It is of God that we have our existence as men, but it is of ourselves that we are righteous? What is it you say, you who deceive yourselves, and, instead of establishing freewill, cast it headlong down from the heights of its self-elevation through the empty regions of presumption into the depths of an ocean grave? Why, your assertion that man of himself works righteousness, that is the height of your self-elation. But the Truth contradicts you, and declares, The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine. Away with you now over your giddy precipices, and, without a spot whereon to take your stand, vapor away at your windy talk. These are the empty regions of your presumption. But look well at what is tracking your steps, and, if you have any sense remaining, let your hair stand on end. For whoever imagines that he is bearing fruit of himself is not in the vine, and he that is not in the vine is not in Christ, and he that is not in Christ is not a Christian. Such are the ocean depths into which you have plunged.

3. Ponder again and again what the Truth has still further to say: I am the vine, He adds, you are the branches: he that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing. For just to keep any from supposing that the branch can bear at least some little fruit of itself, after saying, the same brings forth much fruit, His next words are not, Without me you can do but little, but ye can do nothing. Whether then it be little or much, without Him it is impracticable; for without Him nothing can be done. For although, when the branch bears little fruit, the husbandman purges it that it may bring forth more; yet if it abide not in the vine, and draw its life from the root, it can bear no fruit whatever of itself. And although Christ would not have been the vine had He not been man, yet He could not have supplied such grace to the branches had He not also been God. And just because such grace is so essential to life, that even death itself ceases to be at the disposal of free-will, He adds, If any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and wither; and they shall gather him, and cast him into the fire, and he is burned. The wood of the vine, therefore, is in the same proportion the more contemptible if it abide not in the vine, as it is glorious while so abiding; in fine, as the Lord likewise says of them in the prophet Ezekiel, when cut off, they are of no use for any purpose of the husbandman, and can be applied to no labor of the mechanic. Ezekiel 15:5 The branch is suitable only for one of two things, either the vine or the fire: if it is not in the vine, its place will be in the fire; and that it may escape the latter, may it have its place in the vine.

4. If you abide in me, He says, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. For abiding thus in Christ, is there anything they can wish but what will be agreeable to Christ? So abiding in the Saviour, can they wish anything that is inconsistent with salvation? Some things, indeed, we wish because we are in Christ, and other things we desire because still in this world. For at times, in connection with this our present abode, we are inwardly prompted to ask what we know not it would be inexpedient for us to receive. But God forbid that such should be given us if we abide in Christ, who, when we ask, only does what will be for our advantage. Abiding, therefore, ourselves in Him, when His words abide in us we shall ask what we will, and it shall be done unto us. For if we ask, and the doing follows not, what we ask is not connected with our abiding in Him, nor with His words which abide in us, but with that craving and infirmity of the flesh which are not in Him, and have not His words abiding in them. For to His words, at all events, belongs that prayer which He taught, and in which we say, Our Father, who art in heaven. Matthew 6:9 Let us only not fall away from the words and meaning of this prayer in our petitions, and whatever we ask, it shall be done unto us. For then only may His words be said to abide in us, when we do what He has commanded us, and love what He has promised. But when His words abide only in the memory, and have no place in the life, the branch is not to be accounted as in the vine, because it draws not its life from the root. It is to this distinction that the word of Scripture has respect, and to those that remember His commandments to do them. For many retain them in their memory only to treat them with contempt, or even to mock at and assail them. It is not in such as have only some kind of contact, but no connection, that the words of Christ abide; and to them, therefore, they will not be a blessing, but a testimony against them; and because they are present in them without abiding in them, they are held fast by them for the very purpose of being judged according to them at last.

Tractate 82 (John 15:8-10)

1. The Saviour, in thus speaking to the disciples, commends still more and more the grace whereby we are saved, when He says, Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear very much fruit, and be made my disciples. Whether we say glorified, or made bright, both are the rendering given us of one Greek verb, namely doxazein (δοξάζειν). For what is doxa (δόξα) in Greek, is in Latin glory. I have thought it worth while to mention this, because the apostle says, If Abraham was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God. Romans 4:2 For this is the glory before God, whereby God, and not man, is glorified, when he is justified, not by works, but by faith, so that even his doing well is imparted to him by God; just as the branch, as I have stated above, cannot bear fruit of itself. For if herein God the Father is glorified, that we bear much fruit, and be made the disciples of Christ, let us not credit our own glory therewith, as if we had it of ourselves. For of Him is such a grace, and accordingly therein the glory is not ours, but His. Hence also, in another passage, after saying, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works; to keep them from the thought that such good works were of themselves, He immediately added, and may glorify your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:16 For herein is the Father glorified, that we bear much fruit, and be made the disciples of Christ. And by whom are we so made, but by Him whose mercy has forestalled us? For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Ephesians 2:10

2. As the Father has loved me, He says, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. Here, then, you see, is the source of our good works. For whence should we have them, were it not that faith works by love? Galatians 5:6 And how should we love, were it not that we were first loved? With striking clearness is this declared by the same evangelist in his epistle: We love God because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19 But when He says, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you, He indicates no such equality between our nature and His as there is between Himself and the Father, but the grace whereby the Mediator between God and men is the man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5 For He is pointed out as Mediator when He says, The Father — me, and I— you. For the Father, indeed, also loves us, but in Him; for herein is the Father glorified, that we bear fruit in the vine, that is, in the Son, and so be made His disciples.

3. Continue ye, He says, in my love. How shall we continue? Listen to what follows: If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. Love brings about the keeping of His commandments; but does the keeping of His commandments bring about love? Who can doubt that it is love which precedes? For he has no true ground for keeping the commandments who is destitute of love. And so, in saying, If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, He shows not the source from which love springs, but the means whereby it is manifested. As if He said, Think not that you abide in my love if you keep not my commandments; for it is only if you have kept them that you shall abide. In other words, it will thus be made apparent that you shall abide in my love if you keep my commandments. So that no one need deceive himself by saying that he loves Him, if he keeps not His commandments. For we love Him just in the same measure as we keep His commandments; and the less we keep them, the less we love. And although, when He says, Continue ye in my love, it is not apparent what love He spoke of; whether the love we bear to Him, or that which He bears to us: yet it is seen at once in the previous clause. For He had there said, So have I loved you; and to these words He immediately adds, Continue ye in my love: accordingly, it is that love which He bears to us. What, then, do the words mean, Continue ye in my love, but just, continue ye in my grace? And what do these mean, If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, but, hereby shall you know that you shall abide in the love which I bear to you, if you keep my commandments? It is not, then, for the purpose of awakening His love to us that we first keep His commandments; but this, that unless He loves us, we cannot keep His commandments. This is a grace which lies all disclosed to the humble, but is hid from the proud.

4. But what are we to make of that which follows: Even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love? Here also He certainly intended us to understand that fatherly love wherewith He was loved of the Father. For this was what He has just said, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; and then to these He added the words, Continue ye in my love; in that, doubtless, wherewith I have loved you. Accordingly, when He says also of the Father, I abide in His love, we are to understand it of that love which was borne Him by the Father. But then, in this case also, is that love which the Father bears to the Son referable to the same grace as that wherewith we are loved of the Son: seeing that we on our part are sons, not by nature, but by grace; while the Only-begotten is so by nature and not by grace? Or is this even in the Son Himself to be referred to His condition as man? Certainly so. For in saying, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you, He pointed to the grace that was His as Mediator. For Christ Jesus is the Mediator between God and men, not in respect to His Godhead, but in respect to His manhood. And certainly it is in reference to this His human nature that we read, And Jesus increased in wisdom and age, and in favor [grace] with God and men. Luke 2:52 In harmony, therefore, with this, we may rightly say that while human nature belongs not to the nature of God, yet such human nature does by grace belong to the person of the only-begotten Son of God; and that by grace so great, that there is none greater, yea, none that even approaches equality. For there were no merits that preceded that assumption of humanity, but all His merits began with that very assumption. The Son, therefore, abides in the love wherewith the Father has loved Him, and so has kept His commandments. For what are we to think of Him even as man, but that God is His lifter up? for the Word was God, the Only-begotten, co-eternal with Him that begot; but that He might be given to us as Mediator, by grace ineffable, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Tractate 83 (John 15:2-12)

1. You have just heard, beloved, the Lord saying to His disciples, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be full. And what else is Christ's joy in us, save that He is pleased to rejoice over us? And what is this joy of ours which He says is to be made full, but our having fellowship with Him? On this account He had said to the blessed Peter, If I wash you not, you shall have no part with me. His joy, therefore, in us is the grace He has bestowed upon us: and that is also our joy. But over it He rejoiced even from eternity, when He chose us before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:4 Nor can we rightly say that His joy was not full; for God's joy was never at any time imperfect. But that joy of His was not in us: for we, in whom it could be, had as yet no existence; and even when our existence commenced, it began not to be in Him. But in Him it always was, who in the infallible truth of His own foreknowledge rejoiced that we should yet be His own. Accordingly, He had a joy over us that was already full, when He rejoiced in foreknowing and foreordaining us: and as little could there be any fear intermingling in that joy of His, lest there should be any possible failure in what He foreknew would be done by Himself. Nor, when He began to do what He foreknew that He would do, was there any increase to His joy as the expression of His blessedness; otherwise His making of us must have added to His blessedness. Be such a supposition, brethren, far from our thoughts; for the blessedness of God was neither less without us, nor became greater because of us. His joy, therefore, over our salvation, which was always in Him, when He foreknew and foreordained us, began to be in us when He called us; and this joy we properly call our own, as by it we, too, shall yet be blessed: but this joy, as it is ours, increases and advances, and presses onward perseveringly to its own completion. Accordingly, it has its beginning in the faith of the regenerate, and its completion in the reward when they rise again. Such is my opinion of the purport of the words, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be made full: that mine might be in you; that yours might be made full. For mine was always full, even before you were called, when you were foreknown as those whom I was afterwards to call; but it finds its place in you also, when you are transformed into that which I have foreknown regarding you. And that yours may be full: for you shall be blessed, what you are not as yet; just as you are now created, who had no existence before.

2. This, He says, is my injunction, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Whether we call it injunction or commandment, both are the rendering of the same Greek word, entolé (ἐντολή). But He had already made this same announcement on a former occasion, when, as you ought to remember, I repounded it to you to the best of my ability. For this is what He says there, A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. And so the repetition of this commandment is its commendation: only that there He said, A new commandment I give unto you; and here, This is my commandment: there, as if there had been no such commandment before; and here, as if He had no other commandment to give them. But there it is spoken of as new, to keep us from persevering in our old courses; here, it is called mine, to keep us from treating it with contempt.

3. But when He said in this way here, This is my commandment, as if there were none else, what are we to think, my brethren? Is, then, the commandment about that love wherewith we love one another, His only one? Is there not also another that is still greater — that we should love God? Or has God in very truth given us such a charge about love alone, that we have no need of searching for others? There are three things at least that the apostle commends when he says, But now abide faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 1 Corinthians 13:13 And although in charity, that is, in love, are comprehended the two commandments; yet it is here declared to be the greatest only, and not the sole one. Accordingly, what a host of commandments are given us about faith, what a multitude about hope! Who is there that could collect them together, or suffice to number them? But let us ponder the words of the same apostle: Love is the fullness of the law. Romans 13:10 And so, where there is love, what can be wanting? And where it is not, what is there that can possibly be profitable? The devil believes, James 2:19 but does not love: no one loves who does not believe. One may, indeed, hope for pardon who does not love, but he hopes in vain; but no one can despair who loves. Therefore, where there is love, there of necessity will there be faith and hope; and where there is the love of our neighbor, there also of necessity will be the love of God. For he that loves not God, how loves he his neighbour as himself, seeing that he loves not even himself? Such an one is both impious and iniquitous; and he that loves iniquity, manifestly loves not, but hates his own soul. Let us, therefore, be holding fast to this precept of the Lord, to love one another; and then all else that is commanded we shall do, for all else we have contained in this. But this love is distinguished from that which men bear to one another as such; for in order to mark the distinction, it is added, as I have loved you. And wherefore is it that Christ loves us, but that we may be fitted to reign with Christ? With this aim, therefore, let us also be loving one another, that we may manifest the difference of our love from that of others, who have no such motive in loving one another, because the love itself is wanting. But those whose mutual love has the possession of God Himself for its object, will truly love one another; and, therefore, even for the very purpose of loving one another, they love God. There is no such love as this in all men; for few have this motive for their love one to another, that God may be all in all. 1 Corinthians 15:28

Tractate 84 (John 15:13)

1. The Lord, beloved brethren, has defined that fullness of love which we ought to bear to one another, when He said: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Inasmuch, then, as He had said before, This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you; and appended to these words what you have just been hearing, Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends; there follows from this as a consequence, what this same Evangelist John says in his epistle, That as Christ laid down His life for us, even so we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren; 1 John 3:16 loving one another in truth, as He has loved us, who laid down His life for us. Such also is doubtless the meaning of what we read in the Proverbs of Solomon: If you sit down to supper at the table of a ruler, consider wisely what is set before you; and so put to your hand, knowing that you are bound to make similar preparations. For what is the table of the ruler, but that from which we take the body and blood of Him who laid down His life for us? And what is it to sit thereat, but to approach in humility? And what is it to consider intelligently what is set before you, but worthily to reflect on the magnitude of the favor? And what is it, so to put to your hand, as knowing that you are bound to make similar preparations, but as I have already said, that, as Christ laid down His life for us, so we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren? For as the Apostle Peter also says, Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps. 1 Peter 2:21 This is to make similar preparations. This it was that the blessed martyrs did in their burning love; and if we celebrate their memories in no mere empty form, and, in the banquet whereat they themselves were filled to the full, approach the table of the Lord, we must, as they did, be also ourselves making similar preparations. For on these very grounds we do not commemorate them at that table in the same way, as we do others who now rest in peace, as that we should also pray for them, but rather that they should do so for us, that we may cleave to their footsteps; because they have actually attained that fullness of love, than which, our Lord has told us, there cannot be a greater. For such tokens of love they exhibited for their brethren, as they themselves had equally received at the table of the Lord.

2. But let us not be supposed to have so spoken as if on such grounds we might possibly arrive at an equality with Christ the Lord, if for His sake we have undergone witness-bearing even unto blood. He had power to lay down His life, and to take it again; but we have no power to live as long as we wish; and die we must, however unwilling: He, by dying, straightway slew death in Himself; we, by His death, are delivered from death: His flesh saw no corruption; Acts 2:31 ours, after corruption, shall in the end of the world be clothed by Him with incorruption: He had no need of us, in order to work out our salvation; we, without Him, can do nothing: He gave Himself as the vine, to us the branches; we, apart from Him, can have no life. Lastly, although brethren die for brethren, yet no martyr's blood is ever shed for the remission of the sins of brethren, as was the case in what He did for us; and in this respect He bestowed not on us anything for imitation, but something for congratulation. In as far, then, as the martyrs have shed their blood for the brethren, so far have they exhibited such tokens of love as they themselves perceived at the table of the Lord. (One might imitate Him in dying, but no one could, in redeeming.) In all else, then, that I have said, although it is out of my power to mention everything, the martyr of Christ is far inferior to Christ Himself. But if any one shall set himself in comparison, I say, not with the power, but with the innocence of Christ, and (I would not say) in thinking that he is healing the sins of others, but at least that he has no sins of his own, even so far is his avidity overstepping the requirements of the method of salvation; it is a matter of considerable moment for him, only he attains not his desire. And well it is that he is admonished in that passage of the Proverbs, which immediately goes on to say, But if your greed is too great, be not desirous of his dainties; for it is better that you take nothing thereof, than that you should take more than is befitting. For such things, it is added, have a life of deceit, that is, of hypocrisy. For in asserting his own sinlessness, he cannot prove, but only pretend, that he is righteous. And so it is said, For such have a deceiving life. There is only One who could at once have human flesh and be free from sin. Appropriately are we commanded that which follows; and such a word and proverb is well adapted to human weakness, when it is said, Lay not yourself out, seeing you are poor, against him that is rich. For the rich man is Christ, who was never obnoxious to punishment either through hereditary or personal debt and is righteous Himself, and justifies others. Lay not yourself out against Him, you who are so poor, that you are manifestly to the eyes of all the daily beggar that you are in your prayer for the remission of sins. But keep yourself, he says, from your own counsel [cease from your own wisdom — E.V.]. From what, but from this delusive presumption? For He, indeed, inasmuch as He is not only man but also God, can never be chargeable with evil. For if you turn your eye upon Him, He will nowhere be visible. Your eye, that is, the human eye, wherewith you distinguish that which is human; if you turn it upon Him, He will nowhere be visible, because He cannot be seen with such organs of sight as are yours. For He will provide Himself wings like an eagle's, and will depart to the house of His overseer, from which, at all events, He came to us, and found us not such as He Himself was who came. Let us therefore love one another, even as Christ has loved us, and given Himself for us. Galatians 2:20 For greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And let us be imitating Him in such a spirit of reverential obedience, that we shall never have the boldness to presume on a comparison between Him and ourselves.

Tractate 85 (John 15:14-15)

1. When the Lord Jesus had commended the love which He manifested toward us in dying for us, and had said, Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, He added, You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. What great condescension! When one cannot even be a good servant unless he do his lord's commandments; the very means, which only prove men to be good servants, He wished to be those whereby His friends should be known. But the condescension, as I have termed it, is this, that the Lord condescends to call those His friends whom He knows to be His servants. For, to let us know that it is the duty of servants to yield obedience to their master's commands, He actually in another place reproaches those who are servants, by saying, And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? Luke 6:46 Accordingly, when you say Lord, prove what you say by doing my commandments. Is it not to the obedient servant that He is yet one day to say, Well done, good servant; because you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter into the joy of your Lord? Matthew 25:21 One, therefore, who is a good servant, can be both servant and friend.

2. But let us mark what follows. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does. How, then are we to understand the good servant to be both servant and friend, when He says, Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does? He introduces the name of friend in such a way as to withdraw that of servant; not as if to include both in the one term, but in order that the one should succeed to the place vacated by the other. What does it mean? Is it this, that even in doing the Lord's commandments we shall not be servants? Or this, that then we shall cease to be servants, when we have been good servants? And yet who can contradict the Truth, when He says, Henceforth I call you not servants? and shows why He said so: For the servant, He adds, knows not what his lord does. Is it that a good and tried servant is not likewise entrusted by his master with his secrets? What does He mean, then, by saying, The servant knows not what his lord does? Be it that he knows not what he does, is he ignorant also of what he commands? For if he were so, how can he serve? Or how is he a servant who does no service? And yet the Lord speaks thus: You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants. Truly a marvellous statement! Seeing we cannot serve the Lord but by doing His commandments, how is it that in doing so we shall cease to be servants? If I be not a servant in doing His commandments, and yet cannot be in His service unless I so do, then, in my very service, I am no longer a servant.

3. Let us, brethren, let us understand, and may the Lord enable us to understand, and enable us also to do what we understand. And if we know this, we know of a truth what the Lord does; for it is only the Lord that so enables us, and by such means only do we attain to His friendship. For just as there are two kinds of fear, which produce two classes of fearers; so there are two kinds of service, which produce two classes of servants. There is a fear, which perfect love casts out; 1 John 4:18 and there is another fear, which is clean, and endures forever. The fear that lies not in love, the apostle pointed to when he said, For you have not received the spirit of service again to fear. Romans 8:15 But he referred to the clean fear when he said, Be not high-minded, but fear. Romans 11:20 In that fear which love casts out, there has also to be cast out the service along with it: for both were joined together by the apostle, that is, the service and the fear, when he said, For you have not received the spirit of service again to fear. And it was the servant connected with this kind of service that the Lord also had in His eye when He said, Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his lord does. Certainly not the servant characterized by the clean fear, to whom it is said, Well done, good servant: enter into the joy of your lord; but the servant who is characterized by the fear which love casts out, of whom He elsewhere says, The servant abides not in the house for ever, but the Son abides ever. Since, therefore, He has given us power to become the sons of God, let us not be servants, but sons: that, in some wonderful and indescribable but real way, we may as servants have the power not to be servants; servants, indeed, with that clean fear which distinguishes the servant that enters into the joy of his lord, but not servants with the fear that has to be cast out, and which marks him that abides not in the house forever. But let us bear in mind that it is the Lord that enables us to serve so as not to be servants. And this it is that is unknown to the servant, who knows not what his Lord does; and who, when he does any good thing, is lifted up as if he did it himself, and not his Lord; and so, glories not in the Lord, but in himself, thereby deceiving himself, because glorying, as if he had not received. 1 Corinthians 4:7 But let us, beloved, in order that we may be the friends of the Lord, know what our Lord does. For it is He who makes us not only men, but also righteous, and not we ourselves. And who but He is the doer, in leading us to such a knowledge? For we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 1 Corinthians 2:12 Whatever good there is, is freely given by Him. And so because this also is good, by Him who graciously imparts all good is this gift of knowing likewise bestowed; that, in respect of all good things whatever, he that glories may glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:31 But the words that follow, But I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you, are so profound, that we must by no means compress them within the limits of the present discourse, but leave them over till another.

Tractate 86 (John 15:15-16)

1. It is a worthy subject of inquiry how these words of the Lord are to be understood, But I have called you friends: for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. For who is there that dare affirm or believe that any man knows all things that the only-begotten Son has heard of the Father; when there is no one that can comprehend even how He hears any word of the Father, being as He is Himself the only Word of the Father? Nay more, is it not the case that a little afterwards, in this same discourse, which He delivered to the disciples between the Supper and His passion, He said, I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now? How, then, are we to understand that He made known unto the disciples all that He had heard of the Father, when there are many things that He says not, just because He knows that they cannot bear them now? Doubtless what He is yet to do He says that He has done as the same Being who has made those things which are yet to be. Isaiah 45:11 For as He says by the prophet, They pierced my hands and my feet, and not, They will yet pierce; but speaking as it were of the past, and yet predicting what was still in the future: so also in the passage before us He declares that He has made known to the disciples all, that He knows He will yet make known in that fullness of knowledge, whereof the apostle says, But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For in the same place he adds: Now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known; and now through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face. For the same apostle also says that we have been saved by the washing of regeneration, Titus 3:5 and yet declares in another place, We are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is no hope; for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Romans 8:24-25 To a similar purpose it is also said by his fellow-apostle Peter, In whom, though now seeing Him not, you believe; and in whom, when you see Him, you shall rejoice with a joy unspeakable and glorious: receiving the reward of faith, even the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9 If, then, it is now the season of faith, and faith's reward is the salvation of our souls; who, in that faith which works by love, Galatians 5:6 can doubt that the day must come to an end, and at its close the reward be received; not only the redemption of our body, whereof the Apostle Paul speaks, Romans 8:23 but also the salvation of our souls, as we are told by the Apostle Peter? For the felicity springing from both is at this present time, and in the existing state of mortality, a matter rather of hope than of actual possession. But this it concerns us to remember, that our outward man, to wit the body, is still decaying; but the inward, that is, the soul, is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16 Accordingly, while we are waiting for the immortality of the flesh and salvation of our souls in the future, yet with the pledge we have received, it may be said that we are saved already; so that knowledge of all things which the Only-begotten has heard of the Father we are to regard as a matter of hope still lying in the future, although declared by Christ as something He had already imparted.

2. You have not chosen me, He says, but I have chosen you. Grace such as that is ineffable. For what were we so long as Christ had not yet chosen us, and we were therefore still destitute of love? For he who has chosen Him, how can he love Him? Were we, think you, in that condition which is sung of in the psalm: I had rather be an abject in the house of the Lord, than dwell in the tents of wickedness? Certainly not. What were we then, but sinful and lost? We had not yet come to believe in Him, in order to lead to His choosing us; for if it were those who already believed that He chose, then was He chosen Himself, prior to His choosing. But how could He say, You have not chosen me, save only because His mercy anticipated us? Here surely is at fault the vain reasoning of those who defend the foreknowledge of God in opposition to His grace, and with this view declare that we were chosen before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1:4 because God foreknew that we should be good, but not that He Himself would make us good. So says not He, who declares, You have not chosen me. For had He chosen us on the ground that He foreknew that we should be good, then would He also have foreknown that we would not be the first to make choice of Him. For in no other way could we possibly be good: unless, forsooth, one could be called good who has never made good his choice. What was it then that He chose in those who were not good? For they were not chosen because of their goodness, inasmuch as they could not be good without being chosen. Otherwise grace is no more grace, if we maintain the priority of merit. Such, certainly, is the election of grace, whereof the apostle says: Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. To which he adds: And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. Romans 11:5-6 Listen, you ungrateful one, listen: You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. Not that you may say, I am chosen because I already believed. For if you were believing in Him, then had you already chosen Him. But listen: You have not chosen me. Not that you may say, Before I believed I was already doing good works, and therefore was I chosen. For what good work can be prior to faith, when the apostle says, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin? Romans 14:23 What, then, are we to say on hearing such words, You have not chosen me, but that we were evil, and were chosen in order that we might be good through the grace of Him who chose us? For it is not by grace, if merit preceded: but it is of grace: and therefore that grace did not find, but effected the merit.

3. See then, beloved, how it is that He chooses not the good, but makes those whom He has chosen good. I have chosen you, He says, and appointed you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain. And is not that the fruit, whereof He had already said, Without me you can do nothing? He has chosen therefore, and appointed that we should go and bring forth fruit; and no fruit, accordingly, had we to induce His choice of us. That ye should go, He said, and bring forth fruit. We go to bring forth, and He Himself is the way wherein we go, and wherein He has appointed us to go. And so His mercy has anticipated us in all. And that your fruit, He says, should remain; that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you. Accordingly let love remain; for He Himself is our fruit. And this love lies at present in longing desire, not yet in fullness of enjoyment; and whatsoever with that longing desire we shall ask in the name of the only-begotten Son, the Father gives us. But what is not expedient for our salvation to receive, let us not imagine that we ask that in the Saviour's name: but we ask in the name of the Saviour only that which really belongs to the way of salvation.

Tractate 87 (John 15:17-19)

1. In the Gospel lesson which precedes this one, the Lord had said: You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain; that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you. On these words you remember that we have already discoursed, as the Lord enabled us. But here, that is, in the succeeding lesson which you have heard read, He says: These things I command you, that you love one another. And thereby we are to understand that this is our fruit, of which He had said, I have chosen you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain. And what He subjoined, That whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you, He will certainly give us if we love one another; seeing that this very thing He has also given us, in choosing us when we had no fruit, because we had chosen Him not; and appointing us that we should bring forth fruit — that is, that we should love one another — a fruit that we cannot have apart from Him, just as the branches can do nothing apart from the vine. Our fruit, therefore, is charity, which the apostle explains to be, Out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. 1 Timothy 1:5 So love we one another, and so love we God. For it would be with no true love that we loved one another, if we loved not God. For every one loves his neighbor as himself if he loves God; and if he loves not God, he loves not himself. For on these two commandments of love hang all the law and the prophets: Matthew 22:40 this is our fruit. And it is in reference, therefore, to such fruit that He gives us commandment when He says, These things I command you, that you love one another. In the same way also the Apostle Paul, when wishing to commend the fruit of the Spirit in opposition to the deeds of the flesh, posited this as his principle, saying, The fruit of the Spirit is love; and then, as if springing from and bound up in this principle, he wove the others together, which are joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Galatians 5:22 For who can truly rejoice who loves not good as the source of his joy? Who can have true peace, if he have it not with one whom he truly loves? Who can be long-enduring through persevering continuance in good, save through fervent love? Who can be kind, if he love not the person he is aiding? Who can be good, if he is not made so by loving? Who can be sound in the faith, without that faith which works by love? Whose meekness can be beneficial in character, if not regulated by love? And who will abstain from that which is debasing, if he love not that which dignifies? Appropriately, therefore, does the good Master so frequently commend love, as the only thing needing to be commended, without which all other good things can be of no avail, and which cannot be possessed without bringing with it those other good things that make a man truly good.

2. But alongside of this love we ought also patiently to endure the hatred of the world. For it must of necessity hate those whom it perceives recoiling from that which is loved by itself. But the Lord supplies us with special consolation from His own case, when, after saying, These things I command you, that you love one another, He added, If the world hate you, know that it hated me before [it hated] you. Why then should the member exalt itself above the head? Thou refusest to be in the body if you are unwilling to endure the hatred of the world along with the Head. If you were of the world, He says, the world would love its own. He says this, of course, of the whole Church, which, by itself, He frequently also calls by the name of the world: as when it is said, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. 2 Corinthians 5:19 And this also: The Son of man came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:17 And John says in his epistle: We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also [for those] of the whole world. 1 John 2:1-2 The whole world then is the Church, and yet the whole world hates the Church. The world therefore hates the world, the hostile that which is reconciled, the condemned that which is saved, the polluted that which is cleansed.

3. But that world which God is in Christ reconciling unto Himself, which is saved by Christ, and has all its sins freely pardoned by Christ, has been chosen out of the world that is hostile, condemned, and defiled. For out of that mass, which has all perished in Adam, are formed the vessels of mercy, whereof that world of reconciliation is composed, that is hated by the world which belongs to the vessels of wrath that are formed out of the same mass and fitted to destruction. Finally, after saying, If you were of the world, the world would love its own, He immediately added, But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. And so these men were themselves also of that world, and, that they might no longer be of it, were chosen out of it, through no merit of their own, for no good works of theirs had preceded; and not by nature, which through free-will had become totally corrupted at its source: but gratuitously, that is, of actual grace. For He who chose the world out of the world, effected for Himself, instead of finding, what He should choose: for there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. And if by grace, he adds, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. Romans 11:5-6

4. But if we are asked about the love which is borne to itself by that world of perdition which hates the world of redemption; we reply, it loves itself, of course, with a false love, and not with a true. And hence, it loves itself falsely, and hates itself truly. For he that loves wickedness, hates his own soul. And yet it is said to love itself, inasmuch as it loves the wickedness that makes it wicked; and, on the other hand, it is said to hate itself, inasmuch as it loves that which causes it injury. It hates, therefore, the true nature that is in it, and loves the vice: it hates what it is, as made by the goodness of God, and loves what has been wrought in it by free-will. And hence also, if we rightly understand it, we are at once forbidden and commanded to love it: thus, we are forbidden, when it is said to us, Love not the world; 1 John 2:15 and we are commanded, when it is said to us, Love your enemies. Luke 6:27 These constitute the world that hates us. And therefore we are forbidden to love in it that which it loves in itself; and we are enjoined to love in it what it hates in itself, namely, the workmanship of God, and the various consolations of His goodness. For we are forbidden to love the vice that is in it, and enjoined to love the nature, while it loves the vice in itself, and hates the nature: so that we may both love and hate it in a right manner, whereas it loves and hates itself perversely.

Tractate 88 (John 15:20-21)

1. The Lord, in exhorting His servants to endure with patience the hatred of the world, proposes to them no greater and better example than His own; seeing that, as the Apostle Peter says, Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps. 1 Peter 2:21 And if we really do so, we do it by His assistance, who said, Without me you can do nothing. But further, to those to whom He had already said, If the world hate you, know that it hated me before [it hated] you, He now also says in the word you have just been hearing, when the Gospel was read, Remember my word that I said to you, The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. Now in saying, The servant is not greater than his lord, does He not clearly indicate how He would have us understand what He had said above, Henceforth I call you not servants? For, you see, He calls them servants. For what else can the words imply, The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you? It is clear, therefore, that when it is said, Henceforth I call you not servants, He is to be understood as speaking of that servant who abides not in the house for ever, but is characterized by the fear which love casts out; 1 John 4:18 whereas, when it is here said, The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you, that servant is meant who is distinguished by the clean fear which endures forever. For this is the servant who is yet to hear, Well done, good servant: enter into the joy of your Lord. Matthew 25:21

2. But all these things, He says, will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me. And what are all these things that they will do, but what He has just said, namely, that they will hate and persecute you, and despise your word? For if they kept not their word, and yet neither hated nor persecuted them; or if they even hated, but did not persecute them: it would not be all these things that they did. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake,— what else is that but to say, they will hate me in you, they will persecute me in you; and your word, just because it is mine, they will not keep? For all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake: not for yours, but mine. So much the more miserable, therefore, are those who do such things on account of that name, as those are blessed who suffer such things in its behalf: as He Himself elsewhere says, Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousness' sake. Matthew 5:10 For that is on my account, or for my name's sake: because, as we are taught by the apostle, He is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and santification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 For the wicked do such things to the wicked, but not for righteousness' sake; and therefore both are alike miserable, those who do, and those who suffer them. The good also do such things to the wicked: where, although the former do so for righteousness' sake, yet the latter suffer them not on the same behalf.

3. But some one says, If, when the wicked persecute the good for the name of Christ, the good suffer for righteousness' sake, then surely it is for righteousness' sake that the wicked do so to them; and if such is the case, then also, when the good persecute the wicked for righteousness' sake, it is for righteousness' sake likewise that the wicked suffer. For if the wicked can assail the good with persecution for the name of Christ, why cannot the wicked suffer persecution at the hands of the good on the same account; and what is that, but for righteousness' sake? For if the good act not so on the same account as that on which the wicked suffer, because the good do so for righteousness' sake, while the wicked suffer for unrighteousness, so then neither can the wicked act so on the same account as that for which the good suffer, because the wicked do so by unrighteousness, while the good suffer for righteousness' sake. And how then will that be true, All these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, when the former do it not for the name of Christ, that is, for righteousness' sake, but because of their own iniquity? Such a question is solved in this way, if only we understand the words, All these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, as referring entirely to the righteous, as if it had been said, All these things will you suffer at their hands for my name's sake, so that the words, they will do unto you, are equivalent to these, You will suffer at their hands. But if for my name's sake is to be taken as if He had said, For my name's sake which they hate in you, so also may the other be taken for that righteousness' sake which they hate in you; and in this way the good, when they institute persecution against the wicked, may be rightly said to do so both for righteousness' sake, in their love for which they persecute the wicked, and for that wickedness' sake which they hate in the wicked themselves; and so also the wicked may be said to suffer both for the iniquity that is punished in their persons, and for the righteousness which is exercised in their punishment.

4. It may also be inquired, if the wicked also persecute the wicked, just as ungodly princes and judges, while they were the persecutors of the godly, certainly also punished murderers and adulterers, and all classes of evil-doers whom they ascertained to be acting contrary to the public laws, how are we to understand the words of the Lord, If you were of the world, the world would love its own? John 15:19 For those whom it punishes cannot be loved by the world, which, we see, generally punishes the classes of crimes mentioned above, save only that the world is both in those who punish such crimes, and in those that love them. Therefore that world, which is to be understood as existing in the wicked and ungodly, both hates its own in respect of that section of men in whose case it inflicts injury on the criminal, and loves its own in respect of that other section in whose case it shows favor to its own partners in criminality. Hence, All these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, is said either in reference to that for the sake of which you suffer, or to that on account of which they themselves so deal with you, because that which is in you they both hate and persecute. And He added, Because they know not Him that sent me. This is to be understood as spoken of that knowledge of which it is also elsewhere recorded, But to know You is perfect intelligence. Wisdom 6:16 For those who with such a knowledge know the Father, by whom Christ was sent, can in no wise persecute those whom Christ is gathering; for they also themselves are being gathered by Christ along with the others.

Tractate 89 (John 15:22-23)

1. The Lord had said above to His disciples, If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me. And if we inquire of whom He so spoke, we find that He was led on to these words from what He had said before, If the world hate you, know ye that it hated me before [it hated] you; and now in adding, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, He more expressly pointed to the Jews. Of them, therefore, He also uttered the words that precede, for so does the context itself imply. For it is of the same parties that He said, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; of whom He also said, If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also; but all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me; for it is to these words that He also subjoins the following: If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. The Jews, therefore, persecuted Christ, as the Gospel very clearly indicates, and Christ spoke to the Jews, not to other nations; and it is they, therefore, that He meant to be understood by the world, that hates Christ and His disciples; and, indeed, not those alone, but even these latter were shown by Him to belong to the same world. What, then, does He mean by the words, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin? Was it that the Jews were without sin before Christ came to them in the flesh? Who, though he were the greatest fool, would say so? But it is some great sin, and not every sin, that He would have to be understood, as it were, under the general designation. For this is the sin wherein all sins are included; and whosoever is free from it, has all his sins forgiven him: and this it is, that they believed not on Christ, who came for the very purpose of enlisting their faith. From this sin, had He not come, they would certainly have been free. His advent has become as much fraught with destruction to unbelievers, as it is with salvation to those that believe; for He, the Head and Prince of the apostles, has Himself, as it were, become what they declared of themselves, to some, indeed, the savour of life unto life; and to some the savor of death unto death. 2 Corinthians 2:16

2. But when He went on to say, But now they have no excuse for their sin, some may be moved to inquire whether those to whom Christ neither came nor spoke, have an excuse for their sin. For if they have not, why is it said here that these had none, on the very ground that He did come and speak to them? And if they have, have they it to the extent of thereby being barred from punishment, or of receiving it in a milder degree? To these inquiries, with the Lord's help and to the best of my capacity, I reply, that such have an excuse, not for every one of their sins, but for this sin of not believing on Christ, inasmuch as He came not and spoke not to them. But it is not in the number of such that those are to be included, to whom He came in the persons of His disciples, and to whom He spoke by them, as He also does at present; for by His Church He has come, and by His Church He speaks to the Gentiles. For to this are to be referred the words that He spoke, He that receives you, receives me; Matthew 10:40 and, He that despises you, despises me. Luke 10:16 Or would ye, says the Apostle Paul, have a proof of Him that speaks in me, namely Christ. 2 Corinthians 13:3

3. It remains for us to inquire, whether those who, prior to the coming of Christ in His Church to the Gentiles and to their hearing of His Gospel, have been, or are now being, overtaken by the close of this life, can have such an excuse? Evidently they can, but not on that account can they escape damnation. For as many as have sinned without the law, shall also perish without the law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law. Romans 2:12 And these words of the apostle, inasmuch as his saying, they shall perish, has a more terrible sound than when he says, they shall be judged, seem to show that such an excuse can not only avail them nothing, but even becomes an additional aggravation. For those that excuse themselves because they did not hear, shall perish without the law.

4. But it is also a worthy subject of inquiry, whether those who met the words they heard with contempt, and even with opposition, and that not merely by contradicting them, but also by persecuting in their hatred those from whom they heard them, are to be reckoned among those in regard to whom the words, they shall be judged by the law, convey somewhat of a milder sound. But if it is one thing to perish without the law, and another to be judged by the law; and the former is the heavier, the latter the lighter punishment: such, without a doubt, are not to have their place assigned in that lighter measure of punishment; for, so far from sinning in the law, they utterly refused to accept the law of Christ, and, as far as in them lay, would have had it altogether annihilated. But those that sin in the law, are such as are in the law, that is, who accept it, and confess that it is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good; Romans 7:12 but fail through infirmity in fulfilling what they cannot doubt is most righteously enjoined therein. These are they in regard to whose fate there may perhaps be some distinction made from the perdition of those who are without the law: and yet if the apostle's words, they shall be judged by the law, are to be understood as meaning, they shall not perish, what a wonder if it were so! For his discourse was not about infidels and believers to lead him to say so, but about Gentiles and Jews, both of whom, certainly, if they find not salvation in that Saviour who came to seek that which was lost, Luke 19:10 shall doubtless become the prey of perdition; although it may be said that some shall perish in a more terrible, others in a more mitigated sense; in other words, that some shall suffer a heavier, and others a lighter penalty in their perdition. For he is rightly said to perish as regards God, whoever is separated by punishment from that blessedness which He bestows on His saints, and the diversity of punishments is as great as the diversity of sins; but the mode thereof is accounted too deep by divine wisdom for human guessing to scrutinize or express. At all events, those to whom Christ came, and to whom He spoke, have not, for their great sin of unbelief, any such excuse as may enable them to say, We saw not, we heard not: whether it be that such an excuse would not be sustained by Him whose judg ments are unsearchable, or whether it would, and that, if not for their entire deliverance from damnation, at least for its partial alleviation.

5. He that hates me, He says, hates my Father also. Here it may be said to us, Who can hate one whom he knows not? And certainly before saying, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, He had said to His disciples, These things will they do unto you, because they know not Him that sent me. How, then, do they both know not, and hate? For if the notion they have formed of Him is not that which He is in Himself, but some unknown conjecture of their own, then certainly it is not Himself they are found to hate, but that figment which they devise or rather suspect in their error. And yet, were it not that men could hate that which they know not, the Truth would not have asserted both, namely, that they both know not, and hate His Father. But such a possibility, if by the Lord's help we are able to show it, cannot be demonstrated at present, as this discourse must now be brought to a close.

Tractate 90 (John 15:23)

1. The Lord says, as you have just been hearing, He that hates me, hates my Father also: and yet He had said a little before, These things will they do unto you, because they know not Him that sent me. A question therefore arises that cannot be overlooked, how they can hate one whom they know not? For if it is not God as He really is, but something else, I know not what, that they suspect or believe Him to be, and hate this; then assuredly it is not God Himself that they hate, but the thing they conceive in their own erroneous suspicion or baseless credulity; and if they think of Him as He really is, how can they be said to know Him not? It may be the case, indeed, with regard to men, that we frequently love those whom we have never seen; and in this way it can, on the other hand, be none the less impossible that we should hate those whom we have never seen. The report, for instance, whether good or bad, about some preacher, leads us not improperly to love or to hate the unknown. But if the report is truthful, how can one, of whom we have got such true accounts, be spoken of as unknown? Is it because we have not seen his face? And yet, though he himself does not see it, he can be known to no one better than to himself. The knowledge of any one, therefore, is not conveyed to us in his bodily countenance, but only lies open to our apprehension when his life and character are revealed. Otherwise no one would be able to know himself, because unable to see his own face. But surely he knows himself more certainly than he is known to others, inasmuch as by inward inspection he can the more certainly see what he is conscious of, what he desires, what he is living for; and it is when these are likewise laid open to us, that he becomes truly known to ourselves. And as these, accordingly, are commonly brought to us regarding the absent, or even the dead, either by hearsay or correspondence, it thus comes about that people whom we have never seen by face (and yet of whom we are not entirely ignorant), we frequently either hate or love.

2. But in such cases our credulity is frequently at fault; for sometimes even history, and still more ordinary report, turns out to be false. Yet, it ought to be our concern, in order not to be misled by an injurious opinion, seeing we cannot search into the consciences of men, to have a true and certain sentiment about things themselves. I mean, that in regard to this or that man, if we know not whether he is immodest or modest, we should at all events hate immodesty and love modesty: and if in regard to some one or other we know not whether he is unjust or just, we should at any rate love justice and abhor injustice; not such things as we erroneously fancy to ourselves, but such as we believingly perceive according to God's truth, the one to be desired, the other to be shunned; so that, when in regard to things themselves we do desire what ought to be desired, and utterly avoid what ought to be avoided, we may find pardon for the mistaken feelings which we at times, yea, at all times, entertain regarding the actual state of others which is hidden from our eyes. For this, I think, has to do with human temptation, without which we cannot pass through this life, so that the apostle said, No temptation should befall you but such as is common to man. 1 Corinthians 10:13 For what is so common to man as inability to inspect the heart of man; and therefore, instead of scrutinizing its inmost recesses, to suspect for the most part something very different from what is going on therein? And although in these dark regions of human realities, that is, of other people's inward thoughts, we cannot clear up our suspicions, because we are only men, yet we ought to restrain our judgments, that is, all definite and fixed opinions, and not judge anything before the time, until the Lord come, and bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God. 1 Corinthians 4:5 When, therefore, we are falling into no error in regard to the thing itself, so that there is an accordance with right in our reprobation of vice and approbation of virtue; surely, if a mistake is committed in connection with individuals, a temptation so characteristic of man is within the scope of forgiveness.

3. But amid all these darknesses of human hearts, it happens as a thing much to be wondered at and mourned over, that one, whom we account unjust, and who nevertheless is just, and in whom, without knowing it, we love justice, we sometimes avoid, and turn away from, and hinder from approaching us, and refuse to have life and living in common with him; and, if necessity compel the infliction of discipline, whether to save others from harm or bring the person himself back to rectitude, we even pursue him with a salutary harshness; and so afflict a good man as if he were wicked, and one whom unknowingly we love. This takes place if one, for example's sake, who is modest is believed by us to be the opposite. For, beyond doubt, if I love a modest person, he is himself the very object that I love; and therefore I love the man himself, and know it not. And if I hate an immodest person, it is on that account, not him that I hate: for he is not the thing that I hate; and yet to that object of my love, with whom my heart makes continual abode in the love of modesty, I am ignorantly doing an injury, erring as I do, not in the distinction I make between virtue and vice, but in the thick darkness of the human heart. Accordingly, as it may so happen that a good man may unknowingly hate a good man, or rather loves him without knowing it (for the man himself he loves in loving that which is good; for what the other is, is the very thing that he loves); and without knowing it, hates not the man himself, but that which he supposes him to be: so may it also be the case that an unjust man hates a just man, and, while he opines that he loves one who is unjust like himself, unknowingly loves the just man; and yet so long as he believes him to be unjust, he loves not the man himself, but that which he imagines him to be. And as it is with another man, so is it also with God. For, to conclude, had the Jews been asked if they loved God, what other answer would they have given but that they did love Him, and that not with any intentional falsehood, but because erroneously fancying that they did so? For how could they love the Father of the truth, who were filled with hatred to the truth itself? For they do not wish their own conduct to be condemned, and it is the truth's task to condemn such conduct; and thus they hated the truth as much as they hated their own punishment, which the truth awards to such. But they know not that to be the truth which lays its condemnation on such as they: therefore they hate that which they know not; and hating it, they certainly cannot but also hate Him of whom it is born. And in this way, because they know not the truth, by whose judgment they are condemned, as that which is born of God the Father; of a surety also they both know not, and hate [the Father] Himself. Miserable men! Who, because wishing to be wicked, deny that to be the truth whereby the wicked are condemned. For they refuse to own that to be what it is, when they ought themselves to refuse to be what they are; in order that, while it remains the same, they may be changed, lest by its judgment they fall into condemnation.

Tractate 91 (John 15:24-25)

1. The Lord had said, He that hates me, hates my Father also. For of a certainty he that hates the truth must also hate Him of whom the truth is born; on which subject we have already spoken, as we were granted ability. And then He added the words on which we have now to discourse: If I had not done among [in] them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. To wit, that great sin whereof He also says before, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. Their sin was that of not believing on Him who thus spoke and wrought. For they were not without sin before He so spoke to them and did such works among them; but this sin of theirs, in not believing on Him, is thus specially mentioned because really inclusive in itself of all sins besides. For had they been clear of this one, and believed on Him, all else would also have been forgiven.

2. But what is meant when, after saying, If I had not done among them works, He immediately added, which none other man did? Of a certainty, among all the works of Christ, none seem to be greater than the raising of the dead; and yet we know that the same was done by the prophets of olden time. For Elias did so; 1 Kings 17:21-22 and Elisha also, both when alive in the flesh, 2 Kings 4:35 and when he lay buried in his sepulchre. For when certain men, who were carrying a dead person, had fled there for refuge from an onset of their enemies, and had laid him down therein, he instantly came again to life. 2 Kings 13:21 And yet there were some works that Christ did which none other man did: as, when He fed the five thousand men with five loaves, and the four thousand with seven; when He walked on the waters, and gave Peter power to do the same; Matthew 14:25-29 when He changed the water into wine; John 2:9 when He opened the eyes of a man that was born blind, John 9:7 and many besides, which it would take long to mention. But we are answered, that others also have done works which even He did not, and which no other man has done. For who else save Moses smote the Egyptians with so many and mighty plagues, Exodus vii.-xii as when He led the people through the parted waters of the sea, Exodus 14:21-29 when he obtained manna for them from heaven in their hunger, Exodus xvi and water from the rock in their thirst? Exodus 17:6 Who else save Joshua the Son of Nun divided the stream of the Jordan for the people to pass over, Joshua iii and by the utterance of a prayer to God bridled and stopped the revolving sun? Joshua 10:12-14 Who save Samson ever quenched his thirst with water flowing forth from the jawbone of a dead ass? Judges 15:19 Who save Elias was carried aloft in a chariot of fire? 2 Kings 2:11 Who save Elisha, as I have just mentioned, after his own body was buried, restored the dead body of another to life? Who else besides Daniel lived unhurt amid the jaws of famishing lions, that were shut up with him? Daniel 6:22 And who else save the three men Ananias, Azariah, and Mishael, ever walked about unharmed in flames that blazed and did not burn? Daniel 3:23-27

3. I pass by other examples, as these I consider to be sufficient to show that some of the saints have done wonderful works, which none other man did. But we read of no one whatever of the ancients who cured with such power so many bodily defects, and bad states of the health, and troubles of mortals. For, to say nothing of those individual cases which He healed, as they occurred, by the word of command, the Evangelist Mark says in a certain place: And at even, when the sun had set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were sick of various diseases, and cast out many devils. Mark 1:32-34 And Matthew, in giving us the same account, has also added the prophetic testimony, when he says: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness. Matthew 8:17 In another passage also it is said by Mark: And wherever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch if it were but the border of His garment: and as many as touched Him were made whole. Mark 6:56 None other man did such things in them. For so are we to understand the words in them, not among them, or in their presence; but directly in them, because He healed them. For He wished them to understand the works as those which not only occasioned admiration, but conferred also manifest healing, and were benefits which they ought surely to have requited with love, and not with hatred. He transcends, indeed, the miracles of all besides, in being born of a virgin, and in possessing alone the power, both in His conception and birth, to preserve inviolate the integrity of His mother: but that was done neither before their eyes nor in them. For the knowledge of the truth of such a miracle was reached by the apostles, not through any onlooking that they had in common with others, but in the course of their separate discipleship. Moreover, the fact that on the third day He restored Himself to life from the very tomb, in the flesh wherein He had been slain, and, never thereafter to die, with it ascended into heaven, even surpasses all else that He did: but just as little was this done either in the Jews or before their eyes; nor had it yet been done, when He said, If I had not done among them the works which none other man did.

4. The works, then, are doubtless those miracles of healing in connection with their bodily complaints which He exhibited to such an extent as no one before had furnished among them: for these they saw, and it is in reproaching them therewith that He proceeds to say, But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father: but [this comes to pass] that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause [gratuitously]. He calls it, their law, not as invented by them, but given to them: just as we say, Our daily bread; which, nevertheless, we ask of God in conjoining the words Give us. Matthew 6:11 But one hates gratuitously who neither seeks advantage from the hatred nor avoids inconvenience: so do the wicked hate the Lord; and so also is He loved by the righteous, that is to say, gratuitously [gratis, freely,] inasmuch as they expect no other gifts beyond Himself, for He Himself will be all in all. But whoever would be disposed to look for something more profound in the words of Christ, If I had not done among them the works which none other man did (for although such were done by the Father, or the Holy Spirit, yet no one else did them, for the whole Trinity is one and the same in substance), he will find that it was He who did it even when some man of God did something similar. For in Himself He can do everything by Himself; but without Him no one can do anything. For Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit are not three Gods, but one God, of whom it is written, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who only does wondrous things. No one else, therefore, really himself did the works which He did among them; for any one else who did any such works, did them only through His doing. But He Himself did them without any doing on their part.

Tractate 92 (John 15:26-27)

1. The Lord Jesus, in the discourse which He addressed to His disciples after the supper, when Himself in immediate proximity to His passion, and, as it were, on the eve of departure, and of depriving them of His bodily presence while continuing His spiritual presence to all His disciples till the very end of the world, exhorted them to endure the persecutions of the wicked, whom He distinguished by the name of the world: and from which He also told them that He had chosen the disciples themselves, that they might know it was by the grace of God they were what they were, and by their own vices they had been what they had been. And then His own persecutors and theirs He clearly signified to be the Jews, that it might be perfectly apparent that they also were included in the appellation of that damnable world that persecutes the saints. And when He had said of them that they knew not Him that sent Him, and yet hated both the Son and the Father, that is, both Him who was sent and Him who sent Him — of all which we have already treated in previous discourses — He reached the place where it is said, This comes to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. And then He added, as if by way of consequence, the words whereon we have undertaken at present to discourse: But when the Comforter has come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He shall bear witness of me: and you also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. But what connection has this with what He had just said, But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father: but that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause? Was it that the Comforter, when He came, even the Spirit of truth, convicted those, who thus saw and hated, by a still clearer testimony? Yea, verily, some even of those who saw, and still hated, He did convert, by this manifestation of Himself, to the faith that works by love. Galatians 5:6 To make this view of the passage intelligible, we recall to your mind that so it actually befell. For when on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell upon an assembly of one hundred and twenty men, among whom were all the apostles; and when they, filled therewith were speaking in the language of every nation; a goodly number of those who had hated, amazed at the magnitude of the miracle (especially when they perceived in Peter's address so great and divine a testimony borne in behalf of Christ, as that He, who was slain by them and accounted among the dead, was proved to have risen again, and to be now alive), were pricked in their hearts and converted; and so became aware of the beneficent character of that precious blood which had been so impiously and cruelly shed, because themselves redeemed by the very blood which they had shed. Acts 2:2 For the blood of Christ was shed so efficaciously for the remission of all sins, that it could wipe out even the very sin of shedding it. With this therefore in His eye, the Lord said, They hated me without a cause: but when the Comforter has come, He shall bear witness of me; saying, as it were, They hated me, and slew me when I stood visibly before their eyes; but such shall be the testimony borne in my behalf by the Comforter, that He will bring them to believe in me when I am no longer visible to their sight.

2. And ye also, He says, shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. The Holy Spirit shall bear witness, and so also shall you. For, just because you have been with me from the beginning, you can preach what ye know; which you cannot do at present, because the fullness of that Spirit is not yet present within you. He therefore shall testify of me, and you also shall bear witness: for the love of God shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, who shall be given unto you, Romans 5:5 will give you the confidence needful for such witness-bearing. And that certainly was still wanting to Peter, when, terrified by the question of a lady's maid, he could give no true testimony; but, contrary to his own promise, was driven by the greatness of his fear thrice to deny Him. Matthew 26:69-74 But there is no such fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4:18 In fine, before the Lord's passion, his slavish fear was questioned by a bond-woman; but after the Lord's resurrection, his free love by the very Lord of freedom: John 21:15 and so on the one occasion he was troubled, on the other tranquillized; there he denied the One he had loved, here he loved the One he had denied. But still even then that very love was weak and straitened, till strengthened and expanded by the Holy Spirit. And then that Spirit, pervading him thus with the fullness of richer grace, kindled his hitherto frigid heart to such a witness-bearing for Christ, and unlocked those lips that in their previous tremor had suppressed the truth, that, when all on whom the Holy Spirit had descended were speaking in the tongues of all nations to the crowds of Jews collected around, he alone broke forth before the others in the promptitude of his testimony in behalf of the Christ, and confounded His murderers with the account of His resurrection. And if any one would enjoy the pleasure of gazing on a sight so charming in its holiness, let him read the Acts of the Apostles: Acts ii.-v and there let him be filled with amazement at the preaching of the blessed Peter, over whose denial of his Master he had just been mourning; there let him behold that tongue, itself translated from diffidence to confidence, from bondage to liberty, converting to the confession of Christ the tongues of so many of His enemies, not one of which he could bear when lapsing himself into denial. And what shall I say more? In him there shone forth such an effulgence of grace, and such a fullness of the Holy Spirit, and such a weight of most precious truth poured from the lips of the preacher, that he transformed that vast multitude of Jews who were the adversaries and murderers of Christ into men that were ready to die for His name, at whose hands he himself was formerly afraid to die with his Master. All this did that Holy Spirit when sent, who had previously only been promised. And it was these great and marvellous gifts of His own that the Lord foresaw, when He said, They have both seen and hated both me and my Father: that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter has come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of me: and you also shall bear witness. For He, in bearing witness Himself, and inspiring such witnesses with invincible courage, divested Christ's friends of their fear, and transformed into love the hatred of His enemies.