The divinely inspired Evangelist halts the course of his narrative like a galloping horse and brings it back again for our benefit. Why? Before narrating what follows, he needs to show Peter’s third denial. And the particular way this event happened is as follows. By design he picks up the story at the beginning and says that Jesus was sent by [44] Annas to Caiaphas. He portrays Peter being questioned by the servants who were warming themselves with him at the fire and also by one of the relatives of the man he had struck. Under these circumstances Peter made his third denial. Then he mentions the cock crow, showing that our Savior’s statement was not wrong in any way. He foreknew and foretold the weakness of his own disciple in the midst of troubles. He who bequeathed us this book, taught by God as he was, might not have mentioned it at all if he had not considered the babbling nonsense of the enemies of God. Otherwise some of those who are especially intent on making war against the Savior’s glory would have immediately said, “Show us Peter’s denial. How and where did Christ’s prediction come to pass since, according to you, he cannot lie? After all, you say that he is the truth and that he shines forth from the true Father.” The divinely inspired Evangelist, then, needed to give us an account of this to show that Christ is telling the utter truth.
But perhaps one of the opponents will refrain from attacking us with such an argument and will instead make a grievous accusation against Peter, charging that genuine disciple of incomparable cowardice and claiming that he was so ready to fall away verbally that he fell into denial three times before experiencing any hint of tribulation or coming near the gates of danger. Perhaps talk of this sort may be fitting for those not yet initiated in the faith, but I dismiss it completely. I will bid farewell to their nonsense and turn my attention to a defense of what happened, citing the events of the mystical oikonomia as proof for the benefit of those who are accustomed to reflect on the mysteries. The most wise Evangelist had to—had to—mention these events, and for good reason, so that the hearers might understand what even the teachers of the world were before the [45] resurrection of Christ and before the Holy Spirit descended on them, and what they were afterward, when they received the grace of the Spirit, which Christ called “power from on high.”1 Anyone can see that they were quite eager to attain virtue and to dress themselves for action in their desire to follow Christ and that they overcame every danger, which they so often encountered. But since Christ our Savior had not yet destroyed the power of death, the fear of death was still intense and utterly unapproachable. They who had not yet received the Spirit or been armed by grace from above, whose minds were not yet completely free of human frailty and endowed with supernatural courage, showed themselves not entirely unshaken by the fear of experiencing it. Just as iron, even though it is hard by nature, cannot collide with harder stones without injury unless it is fortified by the forge, so also the human soul, even though it shows great courage by its unswerving desire for every good, will never overcome the severity of this conflict without first being ripened by the grace of the divine Spirit. Even the disciples therefore were frail at first, but when they had received the Spirit of almighty God, they left their frailty behind and were transformed into his strength. By their communion with him they rose to supernatural courage.
Even the weakness of the saints, then, has been recorded for our benefit and for the praise and glory of God. He transforms weakness into strength and raises up into an invincible tower what could be overturned by mere fear and sometimes broken up by the mere suggestion of experiencing death. [46] What happened to one, or a few, of the saints serves as an example and a consolation for us. From their experience we are taught not to focus on our own weakness and foolishly grow slack in our service to God but rather to trust in him who can make us all strong and to boast in his supernatural accomplishments and in his grace, which exceeds our hope.
“Judge with a just judgment,” and, “Do not kill the innocent and those in the right.”2 This is what the law and the divine command explicitly proclaim. So these miserable people are ashamed—even against their will—of their lack of charges against him. They find no pretext for their rage against Christ, and they are prevented from killing him themselves by the purification that was at hand since they are about to sacrifice the Passover lamb in accordance with the law, even though the law has no force among them. So they take him to Pilate, trusting in their great ignorance that they would not at all be implicated in the charge of unholy murder if they did not commit it themselves but entrusted the deed to the hands of another, even though their scheme is contrary to the laws of Moses. Besides that, they are convicted of the following utterly ridiculous behavior. They sentence to death him who knew no sin, bringing down such horrifying ungodliness on their own heads, but they avoid the threshold of the governor’s headquarters as though it would cause them to be defiled, and they anxiously avoid associating with men who are still unclean. I suppose they believed that stones and bodies of the same kind as theirs could defile the human soul. But they thought that the most shameful of all crimes, [47] unholy murder, harmed them not at all. And miraculously, or rather stupidly and most senselessly of all, they thought they were purified by the slaughter of the sheep, when it typifies for us nothing but the shadow of the mystery of Christ. They honor the type but insult the truth itself. As they perform purification, they are polluted by their murder of Christ. Christ was right, then, when he called them “whitewashed tombs,”3 outwardly adorned with the superficial embellishments of art but inwardly full of stench and detestable impurity; and again when he said that they “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”4 While they were often very exact about the most insignificant and unimportant matters, so to speak, or even about nothing at all (what is a gnat, after all?), they paid no attention to the most weighty charges against them. They wash the outside of the cup and the plate but give no thought to the utter uncleanness within. Behold—behold, even though the prophet Jeremiah clearly says, “O Jerusalem, wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved,”5 they are convinced that the ungodliness in their mind is of no importance whatsoever. But when they bring Christ to Pilate, they avoid certain places and the bodies of uncircumcised men as if they were cursed. And even though they would not carry out the lawless deed with their own hands, they make Pilate a servant, as it were, of their cruelty, in their ignorance imagining that they would be free from all blame. Someone might be surprised to learn that the holy prophets were not unaware of this ungodliness of theirs. The blessed Isaiah said somewhere of them, “Woe to the lawless! The evil that their hands have done will happen to them.”6 And again, Ezekiel, “As you have done, so shall it be done [48] to you; your reward will return on your own head.”7 Indeed, the divine psalmist himself also cries out, “Render to them their repayment; repay them according to the works of their hands.”8 Just as they brought Christ the Savior of all to the soldiers of Rome, so they undergo the same thing in return when they are handed over to the dominion of Rome and consumed by the power of their conquerors. So terrible was the war that broke out against them and so horrible were the circumstances they endured that some (indeed many) would gladly have chosen, if it were possible, to go into the mountains and rocks and die there rather than to see the war. The Lord foretold that they would choose this when he said, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will say to the mountains, ‘Cover us!’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us!’”9
They are avoiding (so they think) the pollution of stones and walls, so Pilate goes out and inquires of them the reason they came to him. He asks them to explain the charges against the man they brought to him, indirectly condemning the leaders of the Jews. As a foreigner, he respects the Jewish law and treats their prevailing customs with reverence. Contrary to his custom, he hurries out of his headquarters, communicating to the Jews by the significance of this act that their law ought to be obeyed. They, on the other hand, think contrary to the divine commands and pay very little attention to the decrees of Moses since they are attempting an unjust murder. Pilate, who is without the law, [49] asks for the charges and investigates the accusations they are bringing against Jesus, showing them that it is absurd to chastise or impose a penalty on those who have done no wrong; while they, who have nothing to say, bring him as if he were a fierce robber. It was said quite reasonably, then, to the Jewish synagogue, “Sodom has been justified by you.”10 And Christ himself says somewhere, in accusation against the madness of the Israelites in this situation, “You have not even acted in accordance with the ordinances of the nations around you.”11 And the statement is true, since the Greeks would not bring their usual sacrifices to the stones and sticks they consider to be gods with polluted and unwashed hands, and neither would they destroy anyone who was not caught in the most extreme crimes; but the Jews, even though they are about to sacrifice the Passover lamb to him who is by nature God, stain their souls with innocent blood and are intent on unjustly putting to death him who is a stranger to all sin.
They are at a loss for a legitimate charge, but they cloak the disgrace of their ungodliness and their apparent decision to put him to death unjustly by giving the sophistical answer that they would not have brought Jesus to pay a penalty if he were not caught in a crime. They are still pretending to obey the law, which commands them to render a holy judgment in all things. And miraculously they employ their respect for the law as a weapon [against the lawgiver].12 They who do not shrink from accusing the lawgiver claim credit as keepers of the law. They claim that he who had come to take away sin did evil, so that Christ is shown to be right when he says of them through the voice of the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! They are wretched, [50] for they have transgressed against me. I redeemed them, but they have spoken lies against me.”13
It would not be right for me, he says, to impose a sentence of illegal penalties on a man who has been convicted of no wrong and who remains unjudged by you. You judge him by your own law, he says, if indeed it has decreed that one who is completely innocent should be punished. Truly, it is not a little ridiculous, or rather it is worthy of everlasting lament, that the laws of the Greeks acquit the Lord, so that even Pilate shrinks from punishing him when he is brought with such nebulous charges, while they say that he must be put to death, even though they boast in being instructed in the divine law.
They say that the purification accomplished by the slaughter of the sheep—if indeed any purification is possible for those who dare to commit such atrocities—is a hindrance to them and a forceful impediment, as it were, to their unholy blood guilt. They would have been quite ready to commit the godless act themselves without the cooperation of anyone else. After all, the mind of the Jews is quite prone to commit every kind of wickedness, to fear no extraordinary acts and to blush at nothing that is displeasing to God. Therefore, they thought Pilate should lend them his own cruelty and become an imitator of Jewish insanity and serve them on this occasion, since they did not have free recourse to their madness. But even [51] this they say to prove that Christ was telling the truth when he foreknew how and with what sort of death he would die, and he foretold this to his holy disciples. What did he say to them? “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is handed over into the hands of sinners, and they will crucify him and will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.”14 It is necessary to mention this. He had to foreknow his suffering so that no one would think that he before whom all things are “naked and laid bare”15 experienced this against his will, but rather one should be convinced that he willingly submitted to the cross for us and for our sakes.
Since they have no accusation at all, or at least nothing to allege against him that imposes a just penalty on those who commit it, and since Pilate is there asking for the reasons why they brought him, they say that Jesus sinned against Caesar, usurping his rule over the Jews and transferring the glory of his reign into his own grasp. With the utmost wicked intent the scheme was devised and the false testimony was prepared. They knew that Pilate, however unwilling he might be, would surely give thought to his own safety and swiftly and precipitously punish whoever was accused of such a thing. Since the inhabitants of the land of the Jews were constantly provoked to riots and unrest and easily incited to revolt, Caesar’s judges were very sensitive to this. They carefully guarded good order and were very swift to impose punishment on those who were accused (sometimes falsely) of this crime. The Jews therefore made it a charge [52] against Christ that he reigned over the Jews. So they were justly cast out, and the Gentiles were brought in, placed under the yoke and made subject to the reign of Christ. “Ask of me,” it says, “and I will give you the Gentiles as your heritage and the ends of the earth as your possession.”16 When the one nation of the Jews provoked him, all the nations were given to Christ, the ends of the earth in place of one land (I mean the land of the Jews). As Paul says, “Their stumbling means riches for the world, and their defeat means riches for the Gentiles.”17
Pilate then states clearly what he heard the Jews mumbling, and he commands the Lord to offer a defense and say whether he is truly the “king of the Jews.” Pilate is distressed, it seems, and he thinks Caesar’s rule is in danger, so he inquires very intently so that he can exact appropriate retribution on what has been done in order to make himself blameless in the office entrusted to him by the Romans.
Since no one, he says, has openly brought this charge against me, where did you get this idea? There is no doubt that this scheme and this trap have been devised by the malice of the Jews. Otherwise, he says, you would not be both the judge and the accuser. Now Christ said this to bring Pilate to the realization that nothing could escape him, even if it was unseen and devised and said in secret, so that when he recognized that Christ’s nature was more than human, he might be more hesitant to render service to the cruelty of those who brought Christ to him. [53] At the same time he was teaching that it was utterly unjust for Pilate to force him who had been convicted of no crime to pay the penalty merely on the basis of the words of others.
He now exposes the villainy of the Jews and all but summons the multitude of the accusers. It is as if he said, “It does not concern me to know about you, since I am not a Jew. Rather it is fitting for your own nation and kindred, who perhaps because they know this are bringing you to be put to death.” Next he brings accusation down on his own head. The question, “What have you done?” indicates nothing other than this. The holy Evangelist was very zealous to narrate in great detail especially the matters concerning the judgment itself and that Pilate asked Jesus, “What have you done?” By this we may best perceive the lack of charges against him and learn that, as none were brought forward and Christ our Savior was convicted of nothing, the sentence of death pronounced against him was ungodly and utterly unjust.
He dispelled Pilate’s fear, as the appointed guardian of Caesar’s rule, since he had supposed that Christ was planning a revolt against the temporal law, as the Jews had vainly suggested. This is what they were hinting at when they said, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you,”18 [54] meaning that his crime was revolt. They were pretending that they were so well disposed toward the Romans that they could not bear even to utter the word revolt. That is the reason they said they brought him to be punished. When Christ answered these charges, he did not deny that he was a king (since he had to tell the truth). But he clearly showed that he was not hostile to Caesar’s kingdom by indicating that his rule was not earthly, but that he reigned as God over heaven and earth and things still greater than these.
What, then, was his proof? And how did he remove their suspicion? He says that he never used bodyguards or warriors and that he had no one at all who was determined to offer resistance—not only to prevent him from losing his kingdom but even to deliver him from the danger inflicted on him, which was prepared by the hand of the Jews. (The danger did not come from their ruler, that is, Caesar.) When he refutes this outcry with such a clear proof, it becomes clear to Pilate that the audacious case against Christ was without foundation. Yet without compulsion and with no one forcing him to that outcome, he complies with the pleasure of the Jews to the destruction of his own soul and incurs with them the charge of killing Christ. By saying that his kingdom is above the world, Christ not only assuages Pilate’s fear and frees him from suspecting revolt, but he also persuades him to regard him in an exalted fashion, and he initiates Pilate’s catechesis, in a way, by his defense. [55]
He turns the truth into a charge against Christ. When he hears, “My kingdom is not from here,”19 he is delivered from fear of revolt. Nevertheless he fixes on the confession of this fact and defines the mere statement that he has a kingdom as an accusation, even though Christ insists it is not of the earth. He drives Jesus, as it were, to this point. “You have already admitted,” he says, “that you are a king.”
He does not deny the glory of his kingdom, and neither does he leave it to Pilate’s words alone to confirm the fact. As God he is king even if someone might not want him to be. Once again he shows the power of the truth, which convinces Pilate even against his will to declare the glory of him who is on trial. “You have said,” he says, “that I am a king.” For this reason, he says, he was born and arrived (in this world, that is) when he became human “to testify to the truth,” that is, to remove falsehood from the world, to overthrow the demon who was tyrannizing the world through deception, and to install truth (that is, the nature that is truly and naturally royal) as the king of all. From this it is clear that he has the ability to rule and have dominion over heaven and earth and everything whatsoever that has been brought into being, not by usurpation or importation from the outside but essentially and by nature. Then, in order to make it clear that he was not unaware that Pilate was hard of hearing [56] and difficult to lead to right thinking, Christ profitably adds, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” The word of truth is readily received by those who have already learned it and love it, but not by those who have not. In fact the prophet Isaiah said to certain people, “If you do not believe, neither will you understand.”20 Pilate immediately showed this to be true when he said, “What is truth?” Just as for those whose physical eyes are injured and who have totally lost their sense of sight, their perception of color is entirely gone, even if one were to bring gold before them and show them a sparkling precious stone—yes, even the brilliant light of the sun will be unremarkable to them, since they have no perception of it and cannot profit from it; so also for those who have injured minds the truth seems foul and ugly, though it implants its spiritual and divine radiance in the souls of those who behold it.
To the condemnation of the Jews’ irreverence and cruelty, he exceeds them in the knowledge of what is just and right, even though he cannot boast in divine instruction but is merely a guardian of human decrees. He gives special respect to the ordinances of those who gave him his rule as a gift. The teachers of the Jewish law very likely would have escaped the snare of the devil if they had chosen to think and act in the same way, and they would have averted the most abominable of all [57] crimes. (I am referring, of course, to the murder of Christ.) Pilate tries to avoid condemning Christ, who had been arrested and captured for no crime, and he says that it is not right for one who is so far removed from any charge to pay a penalty. He quite correctly maintains that this is completely contrary to the laws that he knows, thus putting to shame the most frightful and senseless opposition of the Jews to the divine law. He thought that since they professed to honor justice and fairness, he would immediately persuade them by presenting what is just and right. Next he probably calculated that the acquittal of the one they brought to him of all charges would constitute an outright condemnation of the recklessness of the Jews. In order to prevent them from becoming even more reckless on this account and fomenting terrible unrest, he paved the way, as it were, for the acquittal and put it in the best light by saying, “You have a custom that I release one prisoner for you at the Passover. Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?” By calling Jesus “king of the Jews,” he is joking, and by his jest he is trying to calm the anger of the furious crowd. By this fact he also demonstrates quite clearly that the accusation against this man is baseless. After all, the Roman officer would never have considered a man condemned for usurpation and revolution against Rome to be worthy of release. The very reasons, therefore, that he gave for his release testified to Christ’s complete innocence.
I think that this illustrates the main point of the passage. However, as I was investigating and looking for myself into how the custom came about for the Jews to ask for the release of one person (a thief, perhaps, or a murderer), the thought came to me that they were no longer doing everything in accordance with the divine law but that they decided to use their own customs and turned to a fleeting [58] way of life that does not completely agree with the laws of Moses. As I searched the divine Scriptures, however, and tracked down on every side the reason for the custom, I happened upon a certain divine saying that led me to suspect that the Jews asked for the release of a malefactor in fulfillment of one of the divine laws, even though they were quite misled in doing so. There is written at the end of the book called Numbers a law concerning voluntary and involuntary homicide. After clearly defining the penalty for premeditated murder, the text immediately proceeds to the case of involuntary murder. After other remarks it makes the following statement: “But if someone pushes another without enmity, or hurls any object at him without lying in wait, or without realizing it strikes him with a stone that could kill someone and it falls on him and he dies, and he was not his enemy and was not trying to harm him; then the assembly will judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood according to these ordinances, and the assembly will rescue the slayer from the avenger of blood, and the assembly will restore him to the city of refuge from which he fled.”21 Since that was the written command, it seems that when any were involved in such calamities, the Jews would come together in a crowd and ask for one of them to be released so that they did not seem to disregard this law completely. The law commanded that this be the work of the entire assembly. But even though they were permitted by the law to release him, they asked Pilate to do this. Once they accepted Roman [59] rule, they ceded most of their own affairs to the Roman laws. In fact, though they were permitted to put to death one who was convicted of certain crimes, they brought Jesus to Pilate as one of these, saying, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” Though they were feigning cleansing for the purification of Passover, they were really flattering Rome by this, since they were entrusting to Roman law the authority that the divine decree had given them from above.
Here too the Jews are convicted of utter transgression, yielding to their own desires rather than honoring the ancient decrees. Though the law of Moses commands that one arrested for involuntary homicide be released, not someone like Barabbas (how could such a thing be?), they ask for a notorious bandit. That the man mentioned here is dangerous and brutal and implicated in the charge of murder, the divinely inspired Peter makes clear when he says to the people of the Jews, “But you rejected the holy and righteous one and asked to have a murderer given to you.”22 And so they preferred a bandit to him who disregarded equality with God the Father and clothed himself with our poverty to rescue us from the true murderer, that is, Satan. They had the glory of the priesthood of the law, and they prided themselves greatly on this, but they passed over and completely rejected as worthless the statement, “Judge with a just judgment,”23 when they acquitted the murderer and condemned Christ and said with one accord, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” The Jews, then, will pay the penalty for this ungodliness. [60] One must marvel at the divinely inspired Scriptures, which view the following cry of rejection as spoken in the person of Christ. The prophet Jeremiah says, “I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my heritage; I have given my soul’s beloved into the hands of her enemies. My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest; she has lifted up her voice against me.”24 It seems good to explain what a lion in the forest does. They say that when this great and most terrifying beast of the forest wants to hunt, it goes up to the top of a hill and lets loose a loud and terrible roar. It strikes such fear in the heart of the hearers, whether man or beast, that they cannot endure the unbearable sound of his threatening voice and they immediately fall down. And their fall is caused by the beast’s voice. God confirms, in a way, our explanation of this when he says through the prophet, “The lion roars; who will not fear?”25 The assembly of the Jews, then, has become a lion in the forest, as it were, hunting for Christ our Savior, at least as far as their attempt at vain accusation against him is concerned. (After all, the divine nature is not at all subject to terror or fear.) The assembly clamored to put him to death even though Pilate tried to get them to choose his release. Therefore, those who have not yet learned the divine law are found by their actions to be superior to those who have been instructed in the law.
He flogs him unjustly and allows the crowd of soldiers [61] to ridicule him and to place a crown of thorns on him and to throw a purple robe on him and to wound him with blows and other disgraces. He thought that he would easily shame the Jewish people if only they would see this man, who was free from all charges, suffer such excessive punishment. He was flogged unjustly that he might deliver us from the blows we deserved. He was ridiculed and slapped so that we might ridicule the one who ridicules us, Satan, and we might escape the sin of transgression that clings to us. If we think rightly, we will hold that all of Christ’s sufferings happened for us and in our place, and that they have the power to destroy and ward off what happened to us for good reason because we fell away from God. Just as when he who knew no death gave his own flesh for our life, that fact was sufficient to destroy death for all (since one died in the place of all); so also we must understand that the Lord suffering these things for us also sufficed to deliver us all from flogging and dishonor. Otherwise how is it that “By his bruises we were healed,” as it is written?26 For we have all gone astray, each “to our own way,” as the blessed prophet Isaiah says, “and the Lord has handed him over for our sins,”27 and “he is pained for us.”28 He has been bruised for our transgressions, and he has given his back “to flogging and his cheeks to striking,” as the same prophet says somewhere.29 And so the soldiers, when they had arrested Jesus like some pretender to the throne, ridiculed him as soldiers do. That is why the crown of thorns was brought and put upon his brow. It is a symbol of earthly reign. And the purple robe was put on him as an image, as it were, and a type of royalty, [62] and also as the occasion for more ridicule. The soldiers came up to him and said, “Hail, king of the Jews!”
I have heard some say, or rather some take great delight in saying, that the crown of thorns signifies the multitude of idolaters and should be understood as a kind of diadem that will be taken up by Christ through faith in him. They compare the Gentiles to barren and useless thorns because they do not have the fruit of godliness but are rather fit for fuel to feed the all-consuming fire, just like the sweepings in the fields or the wild thorn that springs up without any tending. They also say that the royal garment, or the purple robe, signifies his coming reign over the whole world. Everything that does not violate a godly interpretation and whose belief will not be unprofitable should be accepted. Therefore, we should not reject this explanation, since it involves careful and ingenious attention to the text.
He admits his mistake and is not ashamed. He says that he had him flogged in vain, and he promises to show him to them, supposing that he would glut, as it were, their savage anger through such a pitiful sight. He practically accuses them, and that publicly, of putting Christ to death unjustly and of forcing him, who cannot transgress his own laws without punishment, to be an outright lawbreaker. Christ’s statement is thereby shown to be true and is fulfilled for him that “the ruler of this world is coming, and he will find nothing against me.”30 Observe how after Satan throws everything into confusion, he finds nothing at all that is condemned by God and classified as a sin [63] which, if he could perhaps pin it on Christ, would make his condemnation just and cause him to be deserving of the accusations against him. In the same way that in Adam he conquered all of human nature in one man, rendering it subject to sin, so also here he is conquered by that nature. After all, he who had no sin was a man, even though he was by nature God. And just as condemnation for transgression was brought about for all through the one man, the first Adam, in the same way the blessing from Christ being justified extends to all through one man, the second Adam. Paul is a witness to this when he says, “Just as through one man, condemnation came to all, so also through one man, the righteousness of life came to all.”31 We are therefore diseased through the disobedience of the first Adam and the resulting curse, but we are enriched by the obedience of the second and the resulting blessing. As God, he is the Lord of the law, but as a human being, he became a keeper of the law along with us. For example we find him saying to us, “Whoever loves me will keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and I remain in his love.”32 Notice how as God and lawgiver he orders us to keep his commandments, but as a keeper of the law just like us he maintains that he too keeps his Father’s commandment.
He displayed to them the Lord of all, godlessly and outrageously treated and insulted by the unbearable ridicule of the soldiers, convinced that now the sheer wrath of the Jews would be sated and cease by the mere sight of [64] such a pitiful and disgraceful spectacle. But they were so far removed from either saying or doing anything merciful toward him or entertaining any good intention that they sank below even the cruelty of beasts and were carried away to an even greater crime and made a more furious outcry to condemn him to cruelest death and force him to suffer the most shameful punishment of all. What could be so bitter a punishment as crucifixion on a tree? And it seems that the most wise Evangelist ascribed to the Jewish leaders alone the incitement of such godlessness. Notice how with careful precision, as it were, he says, “When the chief priests and officers saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’” When the crowd of common people was somewhat ashamed at the evils inflicted on Christ—perhaps they called to mind the miracles he worked—the rulers first started the clamor and kindled the passions of the people under their control to a monstrous fury. God’s statement about them in the prophets is true: “The shepherds are stupid and have not inquired of the Lord; therefore the whole pasture has no understanding and the sheep have been scattered.”33 And the statement is true. Since the guidance of the leaders did not lead to the knowledge of Christ, those who were in the category of “pasture,” that is, the common crowd, perished and fell into a ruinous lack of counsel concerning Christ. Let whoever wishes investigate the instigation of this ungodliness, and they will place the blame on the heads of the leaders. It was their unholy plan from the beginning. They were the ones who bribed the traitor with the temple treasure to make a deal with them. They were the ones who joined the band of soldiers with their own officers and ordered them to capture Christ like an infamous bandit. They were the ones who brought him to Pilate. [65] And now, when they see him flogged and practically reeling from the disgrace heaped on him by everyone, they extend their wrath even further and utter words of limitless envy. Their intention was to kill the Lord of the vineyard, since they thought they would possess his inheritance without risk to themselves. If Christ were removed, they would again rule and enjoy the respect of all. But as the psalmist says, “He who sits in heaven laughs at them; the Lord will hold them in derision.”34 Nothing turned out according to their plan; on the contrary, the nature of affairs went in completely the opposite direction.
Pilate is astonished that the Jewish people and the inhuman crowd of high priests would reach such a level of audacity that they would not hesitate to impose such a horrible death on Christ, even though no charge was discovered that made him deserving of this. That is why he says, with the annoyance of one who was himself practically insulted, “Do you make me the judge in this unjust murder? Shall I become the slayer of the innocent, contrary to all Roman laws? Shall I listen to your words and dismiss what is profitable to me? If I recklessly put myself in the service of your request, can I not expect to suffer horrible consequences? If you do not think that you are committing an unholy act, if you do not consider your deed to be grievous, then do it yourself,” he says. “You who boast in your divine learning, you who take pride in your knowledge of the law—you erect the cross! You dare the murder! You do the unholy deed yourself, bringing down on your own head the accusation of such godlessness! [66] Let the recklessness be Jewish, and let the crime of murder rest on you. If you have a law that imposes such a terrible penalty on someone who has not sinned and that punishes the innocent, let it be carried out by you. I will not allow myself to be a party to it.” This, we may suppose, is what Pilate was saying. His statement is pregnant with a meaning such as this. We may also be astonished once again at the shamelessness of the Jews in this matter, since they were not even embarrassed by the just judgment of a foreigner even though the divine law says of them, “For the lips of the priest should guard knowledge, and they should seek the law from his mouth.”35
When the false accusation that they contrived in the beginning turned out to be stale and established no attempt at revolution or revolt against Caesar’s rule—since the Lord refuted these charges by saying, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews”—and when Pilate rendered a judgment that was just and impartial and not to their liking, saying publicly that he found no charge against him, they had the gall to change their tactics to something completely different. They asserted that they had a law that condemned the Savior to death. And what is that law? The law that decrees punishment for blasphemers. It is written in the book called Leviticus that certain men, counted among the Jews, fought with each other, according to the Scriptures, in the camp. One of them, it says, uttered the divine name [67] and blessed it (meaning that he cursed and blasphemed it) and was condemned to die and to pay the penalty of an unholy tongue. God plainly declares, “Anyone who curses God will bear the sin. One who names the name of the Lord shall be put to death. The whole assembly of Israel shall stone the blasphemer. Aliens as well as citizens, when they name the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”36
But perhaps someone will raise doubts and ask, “What is the law saying, and what does it intend to signify by this? It would not be unreasonable for someone guilty of blasphemy against God to die,” one might say. “That would be completely just. But what if someone insults one of the false gods? Is that person not free from sin? After all, it says that anyone who curses God will bear the sin.” What shall we reply to this? The lawgiver is trustworthy. I think that the desire to insult even those that are not gods by nature is a kind of preparation that urges us down the path toward unguarded speech toward the one who is God by nature. That is why, in another passage, he forbids us from doing it, saying, “You shall not revile gods.”37 He thought that the name of the divinity should receive its proper glory, even if some possess it falsely. The law certainly does not command us to ascribe any honor to false gods, but it teaches that the name of the divinity is to be considered holy, even if it is stolen by some.
Since the law decrees that anyone who falls under the accusation of blasphemy should be punished by death, they say that the Lord is subject to this penalty. The text says that “he claimed to be the Son of God.” So we should next recall where and how this claim was made by Christ. At the pool [68] named after the sheep gate he healed the paralytic of his long and grievous illness on the sabbath day. But they who ought to marvel at such a miracle were offended and accused him of breaking the law just because it was the sabbath. But then Christ defended himself by saying, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”38 In response to this the Evangelist then remarks, “For this reason the Jews persecuted him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.”39 The Jews, then, were scandalized when Christ called the Lord of all his Father. Then Christ made this mild reply to them: “It is written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High.’ If those to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’—and the Scripture cannot be annulled—can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?”40 But the people of the Jews remember none of these things, and they make the truth a charge against the truth. Because Christ said what is true by nature, they claim that he should die. Therefore, I will employ the words of the prophet, “How can you say, ‘We are wise and the law of the Lord is with us’?”41 Would it not have been right first to go through a careful search of who Christ is and where he is from, and then if he is caught in a lie to correct him fairly, but if he is telling the truth to worship him? Why do you abandon the search and the certainty of Holy Scriptures and proceed only to condemnation, making the truth the pretext for your accusation? When you said to Pilate, “He has claimed to be the Son of God,” you should have charged [69] him also with the works of the divine nature and accused him of miraculous wonders. After that you should have cried out that a man dead for three days rose and came back to life with one word from the Savior.42 You should have summoned the only begotten son of the widow and the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. You should have recalled that God-befitting statement addressed to the widow’s son, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”43 or to the little girl, “Child, get up!”44 In addition you should have taught that he granted sight to the blind and cleansing to the lepers, and on top of that with a single command he calmed the tossing of the raging sea and the blast of the furious winds, and whatever else Christ did. But they bury these things in ungrateful silence. They maliciously omit those acts that show him to be God, and they proceed straight to their false accusations. Those wretched people cry out to a foreigner, who had no knowledge at all of the divine Scripture and who saw that Jesus was a man, “He has claimed to be the Son of God,” even though the divinely inspired Scriptures cry out that the Word of God would visit the world in human form. “For behold,” it says, “the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God with us.’”45 What else could be born of a virgin except a human being like us, as far as the appearance and nature of his body is concerned? But along with being human he was also truly God.
The malicious plan of the Jews turns out contrary to their expectations. They elevate their charge to the highest degree [70] by saying that Christ ventured to sin against God himself. But Pilate considers the excessive nature of the charge to warrant an increase in caution. He is more oppressed by fear and undertakes a more careful investigation of him than he did before. He inquires in more detail who he is and where he comes from, not refusing to believe, it seems to me, that though he is a man, he can also be the Son of God. Now he gets this idea and conviction not from the Holy Scriptures but from the error of the Greeks. The Greek myths refer to many people as demigods and children of the gods. The Romans were even more superstitious in such matters. They constantly gave the divine name to the more illustrious of their kings. They erected altars, built shrines and exalted many of them. So Pilate investigates more carefully and precisely than he did at first who Christ is and where he came from. But Jesus, it says, did not answer him a word. He was probably reminding Pilate of his statement. What did he say to him? “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”46 Since Pilate was an idolater, how could he listen to the voice of the Savior when he says that he is the truth and the child of the truth? How could he accept and honor the name of truth in any way, since he rejected it from the outset and said, “What is truth?”47 because he still worshiped false gods and was buried in the darkness of their deception?
Pilate thought that his silence was insane. Therefore, he waves his governing authority over Jesus like a wand, [71] and he thinks that this will be able to induce him by fear, even against his will, to offer a pointless defense. After all, he says that nothing can prevent him from pursuing whatever decision he wishes, whether he chooses to punish him or perhaps to have mercy on him. Since there is no one to force him to make a judgment he does not wish, the outcome for the accused rests with him and him alone. He rebukes him, therefore, feeling insulted by the inappropriate silence, and to that degree his anger is sharpened against him. He has no understanding of the mystery of the silence. You may observe even in this detail that what was foretold by the voice of the prophet is beautifully fulfilled. “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,” he says, “and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away.”48 This is what the blessed Isaiah told us. The psalmist assumes the person of Christ and says somewhere in the Spirit, “I set a guard on my mouth as long as the sinner is in my presence. I was dumb, and I humbled myself, and I kept silence from good words.”49 You should understand “good words” to stand for “curses.” The divine Scripture has the convention of speaking euphemistically of such matters when reference is made to the divine person.
He does not state clearly who he is or where he comes from or who his Father is. And in the same way he prohibits us from wasting the mystical message on the ears of foreigners when he says, “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine.”50 When Pilate parades before him his official authority and ignorantly professes that he can turn the verdict in any direction [72] as seems best to him and him alone, Jesus most profitably replies with his own power and authority and stops him short, as it were, as he was exalting himself against the glory of God by his vain and ignorant boasting. Indeed, it would have been no small calamity for any to suppose that Christ was dragged away against his will to suffer senseless insult and that he was overcome by the violence of the Jews, even though he is God by nature and is proclaimed king of all by the divinely inspired Holy Scriptures. Therefore, he removes for us the occasion for stumbling, and he pulls out this error by the roots, as it were, by saying, “unless it had been given you from above.” He says that Pilate has been given power from above, not because God the Father imposed the suffering of the cross on his own offspring against his will but because the Only Begotten himself gave himself to suffer for us as the Father allowed the mystery to be accomplished in him. It is therefore the consent and agreement of the Father that is said to have been given here, as well as the will of the Son. After all, there is no doubt that the crowd could not have overcome the power of the Savior. It is easy to see this from the many plots they hatched that came to nothing but merely convicted and condemned them of insolence. For example, they wanted to seize him, as the Evangelist says, “but he passed through the midst of them and in this manner went on his way.”51 He says “in this manner” meaning that he was not cautious or afraid or implementing a plan of escape but walked without restraint, with his usual gait, free from all anxiety. He concealed himself by divine and ineffable power and eluded the gaze of those who were trying to kill him. He did not yet will to suffer, and [73] he did not grant to the wrath of his persecutors the ability to endanger him against his will. He says, then, that it was by his own will and the good pleasure of God the Father that power was given to Pilate to have any ability to do to him what he has already dared to do. The supreme divine nature is completely beyond the reach of all created beings and cannot be seized by them. It has by nature power over all things. He then ascribes the “greater sin,” that is, the sin against himself, to the one who brought him to Pilate. And he was quite right to do so. That man was the source, as it were, and gate of the godless acts committed against Jesus, while the judge was merely a servant of the outrageous behavior of others as he made himself complicit in the unholiness of the Jews by his ill-timed cowardice. Who then is the traitor, and to whom does the charge of instigation apply? Surely it is the most venal disciple, or rather the traitor and destroyer of his own soul, and along with him the crowd of leaders and the Jewish people themselves. Though Christ ascribes greater godlessness to them, he does not completely excuse Pilate from blame.
Fear seizes Pilate and makes him more cautious. The outburst of the Jews makes him hesitate to put him to death. Previously, they cried out that “he has claimed to be the Son of God,”52 and Pilate intended to deliver him from all danger and acquit him of all false charges since he was terribly afraid of this fact. But when the Israelites realize this, they return to their original [74] false charge and claim that Jesus swayed the people and transgressed against the rule of Caesar and fought against the reign of the Romans, as far as his power allowed. He “claimed to be a king,” they say. Look at the pathetic and quick-tempered passion of those who make these false charges! First those miserable men cried out with one accord and asserted that he dared to challenge Caesar’s rule. When that did not work very well, since Christ maintained that his kingdom was not an earthly one, they introduced before Pilate the charge of sinning against God himself—even though Pilate held a Roman office—saying, “He claimed to be God.” The villains thought that they could thereby goad Pilate into reflexive anger and that he would forcefully resolve to sentence the Savior to death, making his passion for this a sign of his reverence for God. But when their evil plan proved fruitless, they returned to their original audacity and said that he dared to oppose Caesar’s rule. They also cried out that the judge would absolutely be fighting against Caesar’s glory as well unless he chose to defend it and impose an appropriate punishment on him who had spoken against Caesar, as they saw it, by accepting the title king in any sense. This despite the fact that Caesar did not claim a heavenly kingdom (of which, indeed, Christ is Lord) but an earthly kingdom below, which is rooted in Christ’s power. By him kings reign, as it is written, and by him rulers rule the earth.53 Those utterly unholy men do not guard their tongues; instead they shred the Savior’s glory out of their excessive enmity toward God. The blessed prophet Isaiah is right to rebuke them when he says, “But as for you, [75] come here, you lawless sons and offspring of an adulterer and a whore. Whom are you mocking? Against whom do you stick out your tongue and open your mouth wide? Are you not children of destruction, a lawless seed?”54 After all, it was not against just anyone that they made their outcry and stretched out their unbridled tongue and made every sort of false accusation but against their own Lord, who rules all things with the Father. Therefore, they are rightly called and truly are “children of destruction” and “a lawless seed.”
By saying this the Evangelist ascribes all the blame for murdering Christ to the Jews. Here he clearly says that Pilate was practically conquered against his will by their resistance so that he dismissed any thought of justice and paid no heed to the consequences. Because of this he was dragged down to the will of the murderers, even though he had often told them and clearly insisted to them that Jesus had been found guilty of nothing at all. This fact makes Pilate liable to the most extreme punishments as well. He subordinated his respect for justice to the will of the crowds and handed over him who was guilty of no crime to the frenzy of the Jews. He will therefore be caught incriminating himself in his own ungodliness. He then goes up to his usual judge’s bench to pronounce the death sentence against Christ. The divinely inspired Evangelist profitably and appropriately indicates both [76] the hour and the day, because of the resurrection and his three days with those under the earth, to show that the Lord told the truth when he said to the Jews, “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.”55 On his judgment seat the Roman ruler pointed to Jesus and said, “Here is your king!” And what does he mean by this? He is either joking with the crowd and granting with laughter the innocent blood to those who thirsted for it unjustly, or perhaps he is reproaching the Jews and ridiculing them for their cruelty in that they so much as tolerate seeing him fall into such evils when they themselves name him the king of Israel.
They shout no less than before, and they do not back down from their lust for blood. They are not softened by the mockery, and neither are they moved to clemency by the outrages inflicted upon him; instead they are goaded to even greater fury and demand that he who raised the dead and worked such great miracles among them be crucified. Pilate is greatly distressed by the fact that they are saying that he who had obtained a glorious reputation among them—such a glorious reputation that he was thought to be the Son of God and a king!—not only ought to die but ought to die such a cruel death (since there is nothing worse than crucifixion). The judge therefore makes their outcry a sort of rebuke and reproach: they want him to be crucified who was admired for deeds so surpassingly excellent that [77] they transcend every deed on earth. What is equal to him? What does not fall short of the Son of God and the king?
Here the beloved Israel went astray and explicitly abandoned his love for God. As Moses said, he forsook the God who gave him birth56 and “did not remember the Lord his helper.”57 Notice how he has the “face of a harlot,” as it is written, and “refused to be ashamed.”58 He disowned his own glory and denied his own Lord. God accused them of this very thing when he spoke through the voice of Jeremiah of old, “Go to the isles of the Chettians; send to Kedar and learn whether the nations will change their gods, though they are not gods. But my people have exchanged their glory.”59 And again, “Heaven is amazed at this and shudders in horror, says the Lord. My people have committed two evils. They have abandoned me, the fountain of the water of life, and have hewn out for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot contain water.”60 While the other nations throughout the world held on to their error and were strongly devoted to those they deemed gods—since they had a mind that was not prone to falling away or readily changing to another form of worship—Israel turned away and devoted themselves to Caesar’s rule and rejected the reign of God. Therefore, it was entirely just that they were given over into Caesar’s hands. At first they welcomed his authority, but then they were brought to ruin and their land was taken away. They endured the sufferings of war and its irreparable calamities.61
[78] Observe once again the precision of the writer here. He did not say that the people led such an ungodly response; their leaders did. “The chief priests cried out,” he says, everywhere pointing out that by submissively obeying their leaders, the people were carried over the cliff and fell into the pit of destruction. The chief priests are blamed not only for destroying their own souls but also for being the leaders and officials who occasioned this ruinous bloodlust in the people under their control, just as the prophet surely blamed them when he cried out, “You have been a snare for the watchtower and a net stretched out in Tabor, which the hunters have set up.”62 In this passage he refers to the multitude under their control as a “watchtower.” They were arrayed, so to speak, to observe the conduct of their leaders and to shape their own conduct accordingly. That is why the leaders of the people are called “watchmen” in the Holy Scriptures. The chief priests, then, are a snare and a net for the watchtower. They both initiated the denial and persuaded all the others to say, “We have no king but Caesar.” Those miserable people dare to say this despite the fact that God the Father foretold to them the arrival of the Savior through the voice of the prophet, crying out, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Proclaim it, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation. He is humble and riding on a donkey and a young colt.”63 These people who once brought Jesus into Jerusalem riding on the foal of a donkey, who with one voice together with the infants crowned him with superhuman praises—for they said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”64—now cry out against him, placing themselves solely under Roman rule and removing their neck, as it were, from the yoke of God’s reign. [79] This was clearly the meaning of the statement “We have no king but Caesar.” We will find that even then, however, the people praised Christ the Savior, but we maintain that this audacious outcry came from the malice of the chief priests, along with other exclamations that came from them.
Pilate against his will grants free course to the burning anger of the Jews for them to do whatever they want, even against the law. He cedes his authority as judge and allows them to be carried by their uncontrolled passion with impunity. He permits them to crucify him who was convicted of no crime at all but was condemned without basis merely because he said that he was the Son of God.65 One should therefore ascribe the entirety of the audacious deed to the Jews. I think that one could rightly and reasonably charge them with being the prime movers of the act because the godless actions against Christ originated with them. We maintain, however, that Pilate is not without a share of their unholiness; he is complicit in their actions since he could have rescued him and saved him from the madness of the murderers. Not only did he fail to do so, but he actually handed him over. And he did not simply hand him over, but he handed him over that they might crucify him.
They now lead out the author of life to die. Even this, however, was done for our sakes. By the incomprehensible power and design of God, [80] his suffering accomplished an unexpected reversal. The passion of Christ set a snare, as it were, for the power of death, and the Lord’s death was the source of renewal to incorruptibility and newness of life. Bearing on his shoulders the wood on which he was about to be crucified, he went out, condemned already and suffering the sentence of death, even though he was innocent. And he did it for us. He took upon himself the punishment that the law justly assigns to sinners. He became “a curse for us,” as it is written, “for cursed is everyone,” it says, “who hangs on a tree.”66 We are all cursed because we cannot fulfill the divine law. “We all sin much,”67 and human nature is very prone to sin. Since the divine law said somewhere, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things written in the book of the law, to do them,”68 the curse applies to us and not to others. Those who are charged with the transgression of the law and who are very prone to stray from its decrees would be the ones who deserve punishment. So the one who knew no sin was cursed for us in order to rescue us from the ancient curse. God, who is over all, was sufficient to suffer this on behalf of all and to purchase redemption for all through the death of his own flesh.
Christ, then, does not bear a cross of his own deserving but one that we deserved and that hung over us as far as the condemnation of the law is concerned. Just as he died not for himself but for us, that he might become for us the author of eternal life, destroying in himself the power of death; so also he takes upon himself the cross that we deserved, condemning in himself the condemnation of the law, that all lawlessness may shut its mouth, [81] as the psalmist says,69 when he who has no sin is condemned for the sin of all. What Christ accomplished will be of great benefit to our souls (I mean as an example of courage in the service of God). I think there is no other way for us to arrive at perfection in virtue and complete union with God except to value love for him more than we value earthly life and to be willing and eager to risk ourselves for the truth if the occasion calls for it. Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ says, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”70 I think that “take up the cross” means nothing other than bidding farewell to the world for God’s sake and placing our life in the flesh behind the hope of glory, if it should come to that. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to bear the cross that we deserved. He suffers even this because of his love for us. But we, wretches that we are, whose mother is the insensate earth under our feet and who have been called into being from nothing, sometimes do not even venture to break a sweat in service to God. If suffering should occur because of reverence toward Christ, we immediately deem the shame to be unbearable, and we avoid the ridicule of our opponents or accusers as some kind of ruinous calamity, subordinating what pleases God to our paltry and fleeting love of glory. We grow sick with pride, the mother of all evils, so to speak, and we incur the blame that comes from that, since we think and act like slaves who are above their master and disciples who are above their teacher.71 O what a terrible infirmity that lies hidden in our path and leads our mind astray from its fitting pursuit!
[82] We should also consider that the divinely inspired Peter could not bear the prophecy when Christ our Savior foretold the suffering of the cross. Christ said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of sinners, and they will crucify him and put him to death.”72 But Peter did not yet understand the mystery of the oikonomia. Moved by piety, since he loved God and he loved his teacher, he said, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”73 And how did Christ respond? “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”74 We can gather no small profit from this. We may learn that when the occasion calls for us to demonstrate courage in God’s service and we must endure conflicts for the sake of virtue—yes, even if those who honor and love us the most try to prevent us from doing anything that brings about the establishment of virtue, perhaps by raising concern for our dishonor before others or by citing some worldly consideration—we must not yield. They are no different than Satan, who loves to put stumbling blocks in our way. Indeed, this is Satan’s well-worn, customary procedure. He loves to use deception and sometimes smooth words to divert from their fitting pursuits those who are motivated by a God-loving disposition. I think Christ intends to show something like this when he says, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away.”75 That which harms us is no longer our own, even if it is united to us by the bond of love, and even if nature grants it the right of relationship with us.
A pair of robbers was crucified with Christ, and the malice of the Jews contrived this as well. In order to show the Savior’s death to be utterly disgraceful, as it were, they condemn the righteous one along with two lawbreakers. The two convicted criminals hanging next to Jesus could be a sign of [83] the two peoples about to be joined to him (I mean the Israelites and the Gentiles). And why is a convict the type of these peoples? The law showed the Jews to be convicts because they were guilty of transgressing it, and error showed the Greeks to be convicts because they worshiped creation rather than the creator.
In another sense those who are united with Christ are surely also crucified with him. They undergo the death, as it were, of their old behavior and are transformed to a new evangelical life. Paul said, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”76 And again, speaking of all people in words describing himself, “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”77 He also writes to certain people, “If you died to the world, why do you behave as though you live in the world?”78 The death of worldly behavior raises us up to the beginnings of the behavior and life in Christ. Therefore, the crucifixion of the two robbers next to Christ signifies to us through that event the juxtaposition of the two peoples who are going to die, as it were, with Christ the Savior in the sense that they will bid farewell to worldly pleasures and no longer choose to live in a fleshly way, but instead they will live with their Lord in that they will live his way of life and devote their life to him. And the fact that the men hanging next to him were malefactors79 does no harm to the meaning of the image. “For we were by nature children of wrath”80 before faith in Christ, and we all deserved death, as we said in the beginning.
This is surely the “record that stood against us,” which [84] the divinely inspired Paul says the Lord nailed to his cross and led the rulers and authorities in triumph in it, that is, led them as vanquished and fallen from their rule. Even though the Savior himself did not fasten the inscription, but the coworker and servant of the madness of the Jews did it, it is ascribed to the one who allowed it to happen as if he did it himself. And he triumphed over rulers in it, since it lay open for all who chose to read it, pointing out him who suffered for us and gave his soul as a ransom for the life of all. All people on earth, since we have fallen into the nets of sin—“for all have gone astray, they are all alike useless,” as it is written81—have become subject to the accusations of the devil. We were all living a gloomy and miserable life. The inscription contained a “record that stood against us”—the curse that the divine law imposes on transgressors and the sentence that went forth against those who went astray from that ancient command. It is like Adam’s curse, which extended to the entire race in that everyone broke God’s decrees. God was not angry only with Adam when he fell, but he was also angry with those after him who dishonored the decree of the creator. The law’s condemnation of transgressors extended from one to all. We were therefore cursed and condemned by God’s decree due to the transgression of Adam and to the transgression of the law laid down after him. But the Savior wiped out the record against us, nailing the inscription to his cross, which clearly signifies his death on a tree, which he underwent for the life of those who were condemned. He paid our penalty for us. [85] Even though he who suffered was only one, he was above all creation as God and worth more than the life of all. That is why, as the psalmist says, “all lawlessness stopped its mouth,”82 and the tongue of sin is silenced, as it were, because it no longer has anything to say against sinners. That is because we are justified, since Christ has paid our penalty. “By his stripes we are healed,” as it is written.83 Just as by the tree, the sin of our falling away was brought to completion, so also by the tree, our return to our original state was brought about along with the thrice-longed-for reception of heavenly blessings, as Christ recapitulated for us in himself the source of our disease, as it were.
One could say that it was quite well conceived by a certain divine and ineffable purpose that the inscription contained a triple title “in Hebrew, in Latin and in Greek.” It clearly confessed the reign of our Savior in three of the best-known tongues, offering to the crucified one the first fruits, as it were, of the prophecy that was spoken concerning him. The most wise Daniel said somewhere, “To him was given honor and kingship, and all tribes and tongues will serve him.”84 Yes, and the most holy Paul writes to us, crying out, “Every knee will bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”85 The inscription, then, was the true first fruits, as it were, of the confession of tongues, proclaiming Jesus to be king. In another way it was an accusation against the Jews’ enmity toward God, practically [86] crying out explicitly to those who gathered to read it that they crucified their own king and Lord—those miserable people who gave no thought to love toward him and who fell into utter senselessness.
The leaders of the Jews could not bear the message on the inscription, and they were filled with bitter jealousy. They deny Christ’s kingship again and say that he did not truly reign, and neither was he ever accepted as king, but he just used that title. In their great ignorance they did not realize that truth by nature could never lie. And Christ is the truth. Therefore, he is in fact “King of the Jews” if he is proved to have given himself this title, as they themselves confirm with their own words. Pilate rejects their request to change the inscription, refusing to sully the Savior’s glory completely, doubtless due to God’s ineffable will. After all, Christ’s reign is established and unimpeachable, even if the Jews do not like it and try to falsify the confession of his glory.
The soldiers divided the Savior’s clothes, thus showing a sign of their beastly ferocity and inhuman disposition. It is the custom of executioners to show no concern for the suffering of condemned criminals. Sometimes they carry out the sentence with unnecessary harshness and show masculine indifference in the face of the suffering and divide the clothing among themselves as if the lot fell to them by some appropriate and lawful means. They divide, then, the severed garment into four parts, while they preserve the one whole and uncut. They do not want to tear it in pieces and make it completely useless, so they cast lots to see who gets it. For Christ could not lie when he said through the voice of the psalmist, “They divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.”86 All this was announced beforehand for our benefit, so that we may know by comparing these words to the outcome of events that he is the one foretold to come for our sakes in our image and who is expected to die for the life of all. No one with any sense will think the Savior would, like the foolish Jews, “strain out the gnat”87 (that is, foretell the insignificant, minute details of his passion so as to mention the division of his clothing) “but swallow a camel” (that is, think it not worth mentioning the great and surpassing audacity of their godlessness). Rather he foretold the latter along with the former. [88] First he wanted us to know that since he is God by nature, he was not ignorant of what was about to happen. In addition he wanted us to believe that he is truly the one foretold, being led to the knowledge of this truth by the many things fulfilled in him.
Next, since it is necessary to say something further in examination of the division of clothing—and this will do no harm at all but may perhaps profit the readers—I will discuss this. They tear the Savior’s clothing into four parts, but they preserve the one tunic without tearing it. The ineffable wisdom of the Only Begotten arranged this, as it were, and through it gave a sign of the mystical oikonomia, by which the four parts of the world would be saved. The four quarters of the world divided, as it were, the holy garment of the Word, that is his body, which yet remained undivided. The Only Begotten is divided into small pieces for each person, sanctifying the soul and body of each one through his own flesh, but in everyone he is completely whole and undivided. Christ can in no way be divided, as Paul says.88 The shadow of the law sketched for us this meaning of the mystery concerning him. It represented in type the taking of the lamb at the proper time—not the taking of one lamb for each person but rather one lamb for each household according to the number of the household.89 Everyone was to join with their next-door neighbor. In this way the law commanded that the lamb be divided among many. But in order that the lamb may not seem completely divided, with its flesh being carried from house to house, [89] the law further decrees, “It shall be eaten in one house. You shall not take any of the flesh outside the house.”90 Observe how, as I just said, the Scripture has preserved in types and shadows the division among many who would be in each house, while it is also very careful that it not seem divided but be found perfectly and wholly one in all who partook of it, both divided and not divided. You should understand something like this to apply also to his clothing. It was divided into four parts, but the tunic remained undivided.
And it will do no harm to add the following. One may, if one so desires, take the seamless tunic that was woven from the top and in one’s contemplation apply it to the holy body of Christ. That is because it came into being without any intercourse or coming together of a man and a woman, but its proper structure was woven from above by the activity and power of the Spirit. This view should be accepted. When interpretations do no damage to necessary teachings but are pregnant with what might perhaps bring profit, it would surely be ignorant of us to reject them. Instead we should praise them as the discoveries of an excellent mind.
The divinely inspired Evangelist mentions this too for our benefit, thereby showing that none of the holy words falls to the ground. So what do we say about this? I will tell you. He introduces the women standing at the cross, his mother and the others with her, clearly weeping. [90] The feminine gender is always prone to tears and very much inclined to lament, especially when there is abundant reason for shedding tears. What then induced the blessed Evangelist to go into such detail that he mentioned the women remaining by the cross? He intended to teach the following. The unexpected suffering that happened to the Lord probably caused even the Lord’s mother to stumble, and the exceedingly bitter death on the cross displaced a little of her fitting reflection. On top of that the same effect was produced by the insults of the Jews and the soldiers who quickly came to the cross and ridiculed him who hung there and who had the audacity to divide his clothes in front of his mother. You should not doubt that she entertained considerations such as this: I gave birth to him who is mocked on the tree. Perhaps he was wrong when he said that he was the true Son of the almighty God. Maybe he was in error when he said, “I am the life.”91 How could he be crucified? How could he be ensnared in the nets of the murderers? How could he not overcome the schemes of his persecutors? He commanded Lazarus to return to life and struck all Judea with astonishment. Why does he not come down from the cross? It is probable that the woman, not understanding the mystery, slipped into such a train of thought. We would do well to keep in mind that the nature of these events was so terrible that it could overcome even a sober disposition. It is no wonder that a woman slipped into this. If Peter himself, the preeminent one of the holy disciples, stumbled when Christ spoke to him and taught him explicitly that he would be given over “into the hands of sinners”92 and endure the cross and death, so that he impulsively responded, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you”;93 why is it a surprise that [91] a woman’s frail mind was plunged into weak thoughts? When we say these things, we are not guessing idly, as some may suppose, but we are led to suspect this by what is written about the Lord’s mother. We recall that the righteous Simeon “took” the infant Lord “in his arms,” as it is written,94 gave thanks and said, “Lord, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation.”95 And to the holy virgin he said, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”96 By “sword” he meant the sharp attack of suffering that would divide the woman’s mind into strange thoughts.97 Trials test the heart of those who suffer them and strip away their thoughts.
He gave forethought to his mother, disregarding, as it were, the intensity of his own suffering. For he was impassible even as he was suffering.98 He commits her to the beloved disciple (John, the author of the book) and commands him to take her home and consider her his mother. He enjoins her, in turn, to consider the genuine disciple to be none other than her true son, that is, as he fulfills and imitates the role of her natural son by his tenderness and compassion.
But surely Christ did not say this out of love for the flesh, did he, as some foolish people have thought? Away with this [92] folly! The only people who would fall into such foolishness are those whose brains are damaged by a stroke. What profitable result, then, did Christ accomplish by this? First we maintain that he wanted to underscore the teaching that is honored by the law. What did Moses’ decree say? “Honor your father and your mother that it may be well with you.”99 He gave us this command not only exhorting us to obey, but he also threatened those who refused to do it with the ultimate punishment. He placed sin against one’s fleshly parents on the same level, as it were, with sin against God. The law commanded that the blasphemer be subject to the sentence of death. It says, “Whoever names the name of the Lord shall be put to death.”100 It also imposed the same punishment on those who wield an uncontrolled, unbridled tongue against their parents. It says, “Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.”101 Since the lawgiver has decreed that we should give such honor to our parents, how could it not be fitting that such an illustrious command be confirmed by the decree of the Savior? And since the perfect form of every blessing and virtue proceeds first from him, why should this one not be on equal footing with the others? Surely honoring one’s parents is a very precious kind of virtue. How, tell me, could we learn not to make light of love for them even when we are overwhelmed by intolerable calamities, except by the example of Christ first of all, and through him? After all, the truly noble person is mindful of the holy commandments and refuses to be diverted from their proper pursuit, and this is an issue not in peaceful circumstances but in stormy and troubled circumstances.
In addition to what I have already said I also ask you: How could it not be right for the Lord to take thought for his mother when she had tripped on a stumbling block and her mind was in turmoil? Since he is true God and sees the emotions of the heart and knows what is in the depths of a person, how could he have been ignorant [93] of the thoughts that were troubling her at that time concerning his precious cross? Since he knew her thoughts, he commended her to the disciple, the finest of mystagogues, who could explain the depths of the mystery fully and adequately. He was truly wise and learned in the things of God who received her and took her away gladly to carry out every aspect of the Savior’s will concerning her.
When the unholiness of the Jews had fully completed its godless treatment of Christ and nothing was left to perfect their unthinkable cruelty, the flesh in the end felt its natural craving; it was thirsty, parched by the various outrages. Pain is apt to produce thirst since it uses up moisture in the body with excessive inner heat, inflaming the inner organs of the sufferer with its fiery attacks. Now it would not have been difficult for the Word, who is almighty God, to keep this away from his flesh. But just as he willingly allowed himself to endure the other sufferings, he endured this one too by his own free choice. So he asked for a drink. But they were so pitiless and far removed from the love of God that instead of a drink to quench his thirst, they gave him something to aggravate it. They turned an act of love into an additional impiety. In granting his request, are they not [94] feigning the appearance of love? But the divinely inspired Scripture can never lie. Speaking in the person of Christ our Savior, it says of them, “They gave me gall to eat, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”102
Now the blessed Evangelist John says that they “put a sponge full of the vinegar on a branch of hyssop” and brought it to him. Luke, however, does not mention this at all but merely says that they brought vinegar.103 Matthew and Mark say that they put the sponge on a reed.104 Perhaps some may think that the holy Evangelists disagree with one another, but I think that no one in their right mind would allow that this is the case. Must we not rather search to find out how this godless act was committed? The divinely inspired Luke did not think that the way they brought it was worth mentioning, but he says without elaboration that the vinegar was brought to him when he was thirsty. There is no doubt that the Evangelists would not have disagreed with one another in such small and unimportant details when in the essential matters they are in complete agreement and harmony. What then is the difference between them? What kind of treatment should it receive? There is no doubt that there were many officers (I mean the soldiers) who were irreverent toward Christ and led him away to the cross. Most of the Jews participated in their cruelty. Some put a sponge on a reed, others put it on a branch called hyssop. (Hyssop is a kind of plant.) These wretched people then gave Jesus a drink and committed this act too against their own head. Without realizing it they made themselves unworthy of any mercy whatsoever, since they stripped themselves of every form of gentleness and compassion, [95] and with such inconceivable audacity they competed with each other in godlessness alone. That is why God spoke through the voice of the prophet Ezekiel to the mother of the Jews (that is, Jerusalem) and said, “As you have done, so it will be done to you; your repayment will be repaid on your own head.”105 Through the voice of Isaiah he said to the utterly lawless Israel, “Woe to the lawless! The evil deeds their hands have done will happen to them.”106 This too was committed against Christ along with all the other unholy and monstrous audacities that had already been done to him. Yet here too we will find a lesson for our benefit. By this we learn that an unceasing war, as it were, will be waged against those who have a God-loving disposition and who are rooted in love for Christ by those who have the opposite disposition, who to their last breath will not rid themselves of their mania but will fashion intense trials on every side and eagerly devise every means to hurt them. But just as the trouble did not cease, so also the extent of their courage will be limitless. Just as the terrible acts and the affliction of the trials did not let up, so also the blessedness of the saints will have no end. The grace of their glory will be and remain forever.
When this indignity had been added to the rest, the Savior said, “It is finished,” that is, the measure of the Jews’ godlessness and their furious rage against him were completed. What had the Jews not already done? What extreme inhumanity had they not already practiced? What kind of outrage was omitted, and what extreme insult did they pass over? He was right, then, to say, “It is finished.” Indeed, the hour now summoned him to preach to the spirits in Hades. [96] He visited them that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. He entered death itself for us and endured this experience that is common to our nature (namely, death according to the flesh), even though as God he was life by nature, in order to despoil Hades and to return human nature to life. Thus he became the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,”107 and the “firstborn from the dead,”108 according to the Scriptures. Then he “bowed his head.” This usually happens to the dying because the tautness of the flesh slackens when the spirit (or the soul), which holds the flesh together and maintains its tension, departs. That is why the Evangelist used this expression. And the statement “He gave up his spirit” does not lie outside our customary usage. That is how the common people say, “He was extinguished, and he died.” Now it seems intentional and appropriate that the holy Evangelist did not simply say, “He died,” but, “He gave up his spirit,” that is, into the hands of God the Father, in accordance with his statement, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”109 For us the meaning of these words lays a foundation and a beginning of good hope. I think that we should believe, and for good reason, that when the souls of the saints depart their earthly bodies, by the mercy and compassion of God they are practically placed into the hands, as it were, of the most loving Father. They do not, as some unbelievers have conjectured, haunt their tombs waiting for funeral libations, and neither, like the souls of sinners, are they brought down to the place of limitless punishment, that is, Hades. Rather they hurry into the hands of the Father of all, and Christ our Savior opened up the way for us. He “gave up” his soul into the hands of his Father [97] so that we too, starting in and through his soul, may have the glorious hope, firmly established in this belief, that when we undergo the death of the flesh, we will be in the hands of God, and that is a far better condition than we had in the flesh. That is also why the wise Paul writes to us that it is better to “depart and be with Christ.”110
The curtain in the temple was made of fine linen and was hung right in the middle of the temple, shrouding the inner part and making the inner tabernacle accessible, as it were, only to the high priest. People were not permitted to rush in at will with unwashed feet and casually view the Holy of Holies. Paul showed us that the division made by the curtain was absolutely necessary when he said in his writing to the Hebrews, “For a tent was constructed, the first one, which is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a tent called the Holy of Holies. In it stood the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a golden urn holding the manna, the tablets of the covenant and Aaron’s rod that budded.”112 “The priests go into the first tent,” he says, “to carry out their ritual duties; but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent is still standing.”113 There is no doubt that a curtain was let down at the outer gates of the temple. [98] That is why he mentioned the first tent and called it the Holy Place. No one could claim that any part of the temple was not holy. That would be a lie, since it is all holy. After the first tent the middle curtain formed the second tent (I mean the inner one), the Holy of Holies.
But as the blessed Paul said, the Spirit was demonstrating to us in the form of types that the way that is more fitting for the saints had not yet been revealed, since the people were still kept out and the outer courtyard was still standing. The way of life given by Christ to those who are called by the Spirit to sanctification was not yet truly manifest. The mystery concerning him was not yet manifest, since the commandment of the letter was still in force. That is why the law put the Jews in the outer courtyard. The teaching of the law was a porch and vestibule, so to speak, of the teaching of the gospel and its way of life. The one exists in types; the other gazes at the truth. The first tent is holy, since “the law is holy, and the commandment is righteous and good.”114 But the inner tent is the Holy of Holies because, although those who partook in the righteousness of the law were holy, they become holier still by receiving faith (that is, faith in Christ) and by being anointed by the divine and Holy Spirit. The righteousness of faith, then, is greater than the righteousness of the law, and its sanctification is far richer. That is why the most wise Paul says that he gladly and most readily endured the loss of the righteousness of the law in order to gain Christ and be found “in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ.”115 Some fell backward and were bewitched after running the race well. The Galatians were like this. After having righteousness by faith they returned to the commandments of the law and slipped back into the way of life that consists of types and the letter. To them Paul quite rightly testified, [99] “If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”116
But let us sum up the meaning of the passage in a beneficial and appropriate way. The curtain of the temple is torn from top to bottom. Thus God revealed, as it were, the Holy of Holies and made the inner tent accessible to those who believe in Christ. The knowledge of the divine mystery lies open to us, no longer shrouded by the coarseness of the letter of the law like some curtain, or veiled by the historical account, or walled off by the obscurity of types from the eyes of our mind; rather it lies open in the simplicity of faith and in just a few words. “For the word is near you,” it says, “on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); that if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”117 In these words we see the entire mystery of godliness. As long as Christ had not yet waged the battle for our life and undergone the death of the flesh, the “curtain” was still stretched out, since the power of the law’s commandments still prevailed.
But when all the atrocities committed against Christ by the unholiness of the Jews were “finished,” and he finally “breathed his last” for us (and it was Emmanuel who suffered this), it was then time to rip up that ancient, wide curtain, that is, the protection of the letter of the law, and lay bare the beauty of the truth to those who are sanctified by faith in Christ. The curtain is torn completely. (What else can “from top to bottom” mean?) Why? [100] It is because the saving proclamation contains no partial revelation, but it instills in us the perfect illumination of the divine mysteries. That is why the psalmist said somewhere to God in the person of his new people, “You have manifested to me your hidden and secret wisdom,”118 and the divinely inspired Paul too writes to believers in Christ, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in all speech, in all wisdom and in all knowledge.”119 When the curtain was ripped not partially but through and through, this showed that the worshipers of the Savior were going to be enriched in all wisdom and in all knowledge and in all speech. They would receive knowledge of him without any trouble or obscurity. That is what “from top to bottom” means. And we maintain that this was the most fitting and appropriate time for the revelation of the divine mysteries, when the Savior laid down his life for us, since Israel had already rejected grace and completely departed from love for God by raging against him and enacting their wicked audacity. After all, we can see that they have no evil deeds left to commit, once we learn that they have brought the author of life down into death.
I think we have said enough about this, and our consideration of the divine meaning did not miss the mark. Next, since the divinely inspired Evangelist is very precise in his statement, “When he had breathed his last, the curtain of the temple was torn” (which amounts to a designation of the time of the event as necessary for us to know), come, let us consider another point in addition to what we have already said—a point that has, it seems to me, no small beauty for us to ponder. This point will in no way be found to fall short of the benefit and grace that we need. [101] The following custom prevailed among the Jewish people and their leaders. Whenever they witnessed an act that offended against the decrees of the lawgiver or heard anything outrageous (I mean words of blasphemy), they tore their clothing and took on the appearance of mourners. By this they defended God, in a way. By considering such acts to be intolerable they passed judgment on the madness of the transgressors and acquitted themselves of any blame in the matter. For example, the Savior’s disciples Paul and Barnabas, when certain people who did not yet believe thought that they were gods—“for they called Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes” and, together with the priests, they brought sacrifices and garlands and tried to honor them with sacrifices120—leaped down from the platform, because of the damage that would be done to the divine glory if sacrifices were offered to human beings, and “tore their garments,” as it is written.121 They fended off the ignorant attempt of the idolaters with fitting words. And when Christ our Savior was on trial before the Jewish leaders and was asked who he was and what his teaching was, he answered plainly, “Truly I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”122 In response Caiaphas leaped up out of his seat and tore his garments, saying, “He has blasphemed!”123 So the divine temple itself followed, as it were, this custom that was prevalent among them, tearing its own curtain like a garment right when our Savior breathed his last. It was condemning the impiety of the Jews for blasphemy against him. This too was surely accomplished by divine action in order to show us the holy temple itself mourning for Israel. [102]
The blessed Evangelist does not say this to testify to the reverence of men accustomed to such brutal and savage bloodshed and found guilty of such unholy atrocities. Rather he is portraying them in their ignorance and stupidity, doing what Christ had said: they “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”124 That is because they give no thought to their exceedingly terrible acts of impiety, while they concern themselves with great care over the most insignificant details, behaving ignorantly in both cases. The proof is ready at hand. Look, look! Though they kill Christ, they show great reverence for the sabbath. Though they insult the lawgiver with unthinkable audacity, they make a show of their reverence for the law. Those who destroyed the Lord of the solemn day pretend to honor the great solemnity of that sabbath. And they ask for a favor that is perfectly suited to them. They ask that their legs might be broken to increase the pain of death, by this final intolerable outrage, for those who were already suffering.
The request of the Jews is carried out by men who are afflicted with a madness akin to the cruelty of the Jews (I mean Pilate’s soldiers). They break the legs of the two robbers, since they are still among the living, intensifying the agony of their fatal punishment and forcing them to die by an even more grievous act of violence. But when they find Jesus with his head bowed and they realize that he had already expired, they think there is no point in breaking his legs. But since they have a little doubt about whether he was already dead, they pierce his side with a spear, and blood gushes out mixed with water. God presented us with this event as an image and first fruits, as it were, of the mystical blessing125 and holy baptism. After all, holy baptism truly belongs to Christ and comes from Christ, and the power of the mystical blessing springs from his holy flesh.
The most wise Evangelist confirms for his hearers from these events that Christ was the one who was foretold long ago by the Holy Scriptures, since the events took place in accordance with what was written about him. Not a bone of his was broken, and he was pierced by the spear of the soldiers, in accordance with the Scriptures. He says that the disciple who testified to these things was a spectator, as it were, and a witness to the event, and that he truly knows that his testimony is true. By this he is referring to none other than himself. He refrains from stating this more openly so as to avoid the appearance of a love of glory, since that is an unholy thing and the ultimate affliction. [104]
Concerning the Request for the Body of the Lord
These words cry out with a loud voice against the unholiness of the Jews, showing that it is perilous and not without penalty to be a disciple of Christ. The passage clearly calls our attention to this fine young man (I mean Joseph), who was especially eager to avoid being noticed, even though he was convinced by the teachings of Christ to choose the true worship, which is better and more pleasing to God, who loves virtue, than the commandments of the law. At the same time he confirms what is necessary for our faith. We must—must—believe that Christ laid down his life for us. And when he was buried, how could it not follow as a sure and necessary consequence that he was dead? One may well condemn the extreme brutality of the Jews’ pretense, unsympathetic disposition and heartless attitude, since they did not even grant to Christ the respect that is due the dead or honor him with burial rites when they saw him lying there as an inanimate corpse. This despite the fact that they knew that he was the Christ and they were often astounded at his miracles, even though their bitter envy did not allow them to derive any profit from it. It is a judgment against the inhumanity of the Jews, then, and a reproach to the residents of Jerusalem when the disciple from Arimathea comes and pays the honor of fitting service to him whom he had already honored by faith—though not yet openly but secretly “because of his fear of the Jews,” as the blessed Evangelist says. [105]
He says that not just one disciple had sound intentions and came eagerly to dress the holy body for burial. To the first he adds a second as well (it was Nicodemus), thus gathering together the testimony to the event, as it were, that is valid according to the law. “Every matter shall be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses,” it says.126 There were two, therefore, who laid Jesus in the tomb: Joseph and Nicodemus. Inwardly they had faith in their heart, but they were still seized by a foolish fear and did not yet prefer honor and glory before God to that of the world. Otherwise they would have dismissed the fear of the Jews and paid no attention to their threats; they would have indulged their faith freely and without fear and shown themselves to be holy and good keepers of our Savior’s commandments.
He was numbered among the dead who became dead for us according to the flesh, though we understand him to be (and he truly is) life of himself and because of his Father. In order to fulfill all righteousness (namely, the righteousness that applies to his human form) he subjected his temple of his own free will not only to death but also to what comes after it (I mean burial and being laid in a tomb). The author says that this tomb is in a “garden” and that it is “new.” This fact signifies to us in a type and sketch that Christ’s death is the source that grants us entrance into paradise. [106] He “entered as a forerunner on our behalf.”127 What else besides this could be signified by carrying the body of Jesus into the garden? And the newness of the tomb signifies the strange and untrodden path, as it were, of the return from death to life and the renewal that Christ devised to counter decay. Our death becomes new in the death of Christ, transformed into a kind of sleep with similar power and functions. Since we will live in the future, we are now “alive to God,” according to the Scriptures.128 That is why the blessed Paul everywhere refers to those who have died in Christ as “asleep.” In ancient times the dreaded specter of death held sway over our nature. For death reigned “from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam.”129 And we have “borne the image of the man of dust,”130 enduring death by the divine curse just like he did. When the second Adam appeared to us, the divine man from heaven, and contended for the life of all, he purchased the life of all by the death of his flesh. He destroyed the power of decay and returned to life again. We were then transformed into his image so that we experience a new kind of death, as it were—not one that dissolves us into decomposition forever but one that sends us a sleep that is full of good hope, just like the sleep of him who has renewed this path for us, that is, Christ.
If anyone wishes to assign an additional meaning to the statement that the tomb was new and that no one had ever been laid in it before, this too would be fine. It says that the tomb is new and that no one had ever been laid in it so that no one else may be thought to have risen from the dead except for Jesus. [107]
He not only says that the body was dressed for burial and that there was a garden near the cross and that there was a new tomb in it, but he also notes that Jesus was laid in it, omitting not even a small detail of what happened from the narrative. After all, the confession and knowledge of the death of Christ is absolutely essential for agreeing on and upholding the mystery. That is why the most wise Paul, when he defines for us the rule of faith, says, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”131 And elsewhere he says, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”132 The author of the book, therefore, gives us an essential account of these events. We must—must—believe that he died and was buried. After that the true belief will follow that he burst the bonds of death and returned to his life as God. For “it was impossible for him to be held” by death.133 Since he was life by nature, how could he have undergone decay? He is the one in whom “we live and move and have our being.”134 How could he have been subject to the laws of our nature? Would he not rather, as God, easily have supplied life to that which lacks life? [108]
This devoted and God-loving woman would never have endured remaining at home, and neither would she have left the tomb, if she did not fear the sabbath law and the punishment imposed on transgressors. But she curbed the intensity of her zeal. Letting the ancient precepts now prevail, she resolved that her mind must not, even involuntarily, dwell on what she most desired. But when the sabbath is past and the next day dawns, she runs to the place. And when she sees the stone rolled away from the mouth of the tomb, she is seized by a reasonable suspicion. She considers the unending envy of the Jews and thinks that Jesus has been carried away, ascribing this impiety to their madness along with the others. [109] While the woman is thinking about this and considering what probably happened, she returns to those who love the Lord, eager to make his closest disciples partners, as it were, in her search for him. Since her faith was established, as it were, and impregnable, she was not drawn aside to think less of Christ because of his suffering on the cross, but she calls him Lord, as she usually did, even when he is dead. That is truly a disposition of devotion to God. When those men heard the woman’s news (I mean Peter and John, the author of the book—since he calls himself the “other disciple”), they ran as fast as they could and arrived quickly at the tomb and became eyewitnesses of the miracle. They were enough to be witnesses of the event, since they were two in number, in accordance with the law.135 They have not yet met Christ, risen from the dead, but from the bundle of linen wrappings they infer the resurrection and at last believe that he has burst the very bonds of death, as the ancient Scriptures announced long ago. By understanding the occurrence of these events in light of true prophecies they obtain a faith with the most solid of foundations.
We must also note that the blessed Evangelist John mentions the time of the resurrection to us. He says, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb,” while Matthew, indicating to us the same thing, says that the resurrection took place late at night.136 Now I am sure no one thinks that the Spirit bearers disagree with one another, or that they are describing contradictory times for the resurrection. If any are willing to consider the meaning of their words, they will find that the voices of the saints agree on this point. It seems to me, after all, that early dawn and late night [110] convey the same meaning, which amounts to the midpoint, so to speak, of the night. There is therefore no discrepancy. One starts at the end of the night, the other at the beginning, and they arrive at an advanced hour and come together at the midpoint, as I just said.
The wise disciples, after gathering sufficient evidence for our Savior’s resurrection, were full of firm and unshaken faith because of the outcome of events and the prophecy of the Holy Scriptures. They returned home and probably raced over to their fellow ministers to report the miracle to them and to consider the course they should pursue after this. But one would not go wrong to think that they had another reason for doing this. The anger of the Jews was now at a high point, and their leaders desperately wanted to kill everyone who marveled at our Savior’s word and accepted his ineffable and God-befitting power and glory, especially the holy disciples. They understandably wanted to avoid falling victim to this, so they left the tomb before it was fully light, since it would not be possible for them to do this without danger if they were seen in the daytime, when the torch of the sun would reveal them to the eyes of all.
Now we would certainly not say that cowardice was the unmanly reason, as it were, that they undertook such a reasonable flight. Rather we should think that Christ implanted in the souls of the saints a knowledge of what is profitable and that he did not allow those who were going to become lights and teachers of the world to risk themselves prematurely. After all, [111] the words that he spoke to the Father in heaven concerning them had to be shown true. “Holy Father,” he says, “protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the son of destruction.”137 The disciples therefore flee secretly, thinking that they ought to await the time when they could speak openly. In so doing they are obeying the Savior’s words. For “he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem,” as it is written, “but to wait there for the promise of the Father, which they heard from him: John baptized with water, but they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”138 And we will find that this did indeed come about in the days of the holy Pentecost, when “divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.”139 That is when they were transformed into a ready and courageous disposition and, putting human weakness as far away from them as possible, they arrayed themselves against the madness of the Jews and thought that they should pay no attention to the plotting against them. The wise disciples, then, hid themselves for good reason, as I just said, while the Christ-loving Mary, being free from all fear and not suspecting the anger of the Jews, keeps watch persistently and experiences the natural female passion. She wails inconsolably and sheds unceasing tears from her eyes, not only grieving because the Lord was dead but also because she thinks that he has been taken from the tomb. [112]
Notice that the tears that are shed for Christ do not go unrewarded, and neither is it long before love for him bears fruit. Grace and rich requital will follow pain, since they are yoked together as neighbors, so to speak. Look! Look! As Mary sat there with her heart melted out of love for God, maintaining her genuine love for the Lord, the Savior granted her knowledge of the mystery concerning him through the voice of holy angels. She beheld angels in bright raiment, their garments signifying the perfect beauty of angelic purity. They interrupted her mourning and said, “Woman, why are you weeping?” It was not that they wanted to learn the reason for her shedding of tears. Indeed, they would have known it even if the woman had not told them, since the nature of the circumstances gave them more than enough information about it. Rather they were exhorting her to stop crying since this was not an appropriate moment for her to be overtaken by grief. After all, death was destroyed and decay lost its power now that Christ our Savior was raised for this purpose and opened a new way for the dead to return to life and incorruption. So why, O woman, they say, do you mistake the nature of the occasion? Why are you so bitterly distraught when the outcome of the events calls for the opposite? You should really rather rejoice and be glad. Why then are you weeping and in a sense detracting from the decorum that is due the festival?
They appear sitting at the head and at the feet where the body of Jesus had been lying, thereby in effect indicating [113] to the woman, who thought that the Lord had been taken away, that no one had harmed the holy body, since the angels and holy powers were attending it and surrounding the divine temple. And they knew their Lord. Now one might reasonably ask why the blessed angels said nothing to the holy disciples—indeed they did not appear to them at all—but they appear to and speak to the woman. We reply that it was the intent of Christ the Savior to instill full assurance of his mystery in the souls of those who loved him, but he accomplished this in various ways, depending on the disposition of those being assured. For the holy disciples the outcome of events in agreement with the expectation of the divine Scriptures sufficed to assure them and implanted in them a faith that did not waver. They went home believing the Holy Scriptures, and it would have been superfluous for those who had such a firm faith also to be taught by the voice of the holy angels. But it was absolutely necessary for the woman, who did not know the divine and Holy Scripture and had no other way to know the deep mystery of the resurrection.
The woman, or rather the entire female gender, is slow to understand. She does not yet understand what her eyes see but rather announces the cause of her grief. But since she does not stop calling Christ “Lord,” thereby demonstrating her love for him, it is right for her to enjoy the sight of what she longs for. She sees Jesus, even though she does not realize he is present. And [114] why is that? She was ignorant either because Christ our Savior hid himself by his divine power, not allowing himself to be easily recognized by the eyes of the beholder, or because it was still early dawn and she could not easily make out his appearance, since the night did not allow her to do this but barely revealed his outline as he came near. Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ himself in the Song of Songs mentions walking in the night and the moisture of the morning dew, saying, “My head is wet with the dew, my locks with the drops of the night.”140
Since it is still dark and night has not yet completely dissipated, she barely sees Jesus next to her. She does not know who he is, since she cannot distinguish the image of his body and the features of his face. But she distinctly hears him say, “Woman, why are you weeping?” The Savior’s words were truly gentle, but they were apt to form the impression that they belonged to one of the gardeners. It follows that the Lord said this not to find out the reason for her weeping or because he wanted to learn whom she was looking for, but rather because he wanted to stop her lamentation, just like the pair of blessed angels (since he was speaking in their presence). “Why,” then, “woman, are you weeping?” he asks. “Whom are you looking for?” That is to say, stop crying; you have the one whom you are looking for. I, he says, am the occasion for your mourning, [115] namely because I died and suffered a dreadful fate, and on top of that I have now been taken away from the tomb. But since I am alive and I am here, stop your weeping and change it to joy. He asked the question, then, to end her mourning. The Lord must—must—be our restorer in this way also. Because of human nature’s transgression in Adam, “Earth you are, and to earth you will return”141 was spoken to the entire human nature in the first fruits of the race, and particularly to woman the sentence was pronounced, “In pain you will bear children.”142 Therefore, it was imposed on the woman to be rich in sorrow as a penalty. It was appropriate, then, that the weight of the ancient curse was taken away by the voice of the one who imposed it, when Christ our Savior took away the tears of the woman, or rather of the entire female gender, in Mary, the first fruits. She was the first of women to be sorrowful because of the Savior’s suffering and to grieve over it and to be deemed worthy of the voice that stopped her crying. And the force of those words extend to the entire female gender, if indeed they are pained by the outrages against Christ and honor faith in him, in effect expressing the statement in the Psalms, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? Do I not loathe your enemies? I hate them with a perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.”143
Now our Lord Jesus Christ says these things to free her from her grief, but she thinks that the speaker is one of the gardeners, and she promises very eagerly to transfer the remains of the Savior to another place, if only she were shown where he had laid him. Since she did not yet understand the great mystery of the resurrection, she was disturbed by suspicions of this kind. After all, [116] the female mind is slow-witted and ill-equipped to comprehend without trouble even matters that are not too difficult, much less miracles that are beyond comprehension.
He invites the mind of the woman to a clearer understanding by placing himself in her sight without concealment (since she loved him dearly), and he almost rebukes her for taking so long to recognize that he is Christ. Calling her by name suggests something like this. She immediately understands, and the sight of him now shakes off her original suspicions. She addresses him with her usual term of honor, saying, “Rabbouni,” that is, “Teacher.” Her mind is filled with the highest joy, and she eagerly runs to him to touch his holy body and gain a blessing from it.
The meaning of the statement is not easy for the many to see because there is a mystery hidden in it. Nevertheless we must examine it for the profit it offers. The Lord will grant us the understanding of his own words. He hinders the woman as she is running to him, and though she longs to embrace his feet, he does not allow it. He clarifies the reason for his action by saying, “I have not yet ascended to my Father.” But we must investigate what we are to think this means. How could the fact that he has not yet [117] ascended to the Father in heaven constitute a sufficient reason for those who love him not to be able to touch his holy body? Would it not be blameworthy to think that the Lord said this to her to avoid the pollution of touch or to be pure when he ascended to the Father in heaven? How would that not be exposed as ignorant and altogether insane? The divine nature could never be polluted. Just as when the light of the sun’s rays strikes dung or other earthly impurities, it suffers no harm—since it remains what it is, namely, undefiled, and does not partake in the foul odors of what it encounters—so also the divine and all-holy nature could never take on the filth of defilement. What then is the reason that Mary was prevented from touching his holy flesh when she ran to him and yearned to do so? What did the Lord mean when he said, “I have not yet ascended to the Father”? We must now investigate this as best we can. We maintain that there are many different purposes for our Savior’s advent, but this one is the most important and is revealed by his own words: “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”144
Before the saving cross and his resurrection from the dead, when his oikonomia for us had not yet reached its proper goal, he mingled with both the righteous and the unrighteous, and he ate with tax collectors and sinners. He gave free access to whomever wanted to touch his holy flesh so that he might sanctify and call everyone to the knowledge of the truth and bring back to health those who were sick and wasting away from the disease of sin. That is why he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, [118] but those who are sick.”145 Therefore, before his resurrection from the dead, he mingled indiscriminately with the righteous and the sinners, and he drove away absolutely no one who approached him. For example, a woman once came to him weeping in the house of the Pharisees as he was reclining. She was a “sinner in the city,” as it is written.146 She let down her wanton locks, which were scarcely released from the service of her past sins, and wiped his feet, and he clearly did not prevent it. And when he was on his way to raise the daughter of the leader of the synagogue, a woman approached him who was “suffering from hemorrhages,” and she “touched the hem of his clothes.”147 We find that he was not upset, but he considered her worthy of a word of blessing. “Daughter,” he said, “your faith has made you well; go in peace.”148 At that time, according to the oikonomia, the impure and polluted in both body and mind could touch the holy flesh of Christ our Savior without hindrance and enjoy every blessing from it. But once he has fulfilled the oikonomia for us, and he has endured the cross itself and death on the cross and has come to life again and shown his nature to be stronger than death, then he prevents those who approach him and does not let them touch his holy flesh.
He does this as a type of the holy churches and of the mystery concerning himself, which the law given through the all-wise Moses also indicated to us when it represented the slaughtering of the lamb as an image of Christ. “No uncircumcised person shall eat of it,” it says.149 By “uncircumcised” it means “impure.” And humanity, at least according to its own nature, could reasonably be understood to be impure. After all, what is human nature in comparison with the purity of God? Therefore, while we are still uncircumcised, that is, impure, we must not [119] touch the holy body, but rather we must be made pure by the circumcision that is by the Spirit. “Circumcision of the heart is by the Spirit,” as Paul says.150 But circumcision by the Spirit would not happen in us if the Holy Spirit did not dwell in us by faith and holy baptism. Surely it was fitting, then, that Mary was prevented from touching the holy body for a while, since she had not yet received the Spirit. Even though Christ had been raised from the dead, the Spirit had not yet been given to humanity from the Father through him. When he ascended to God the Father, he sent the Spirit to us. That is why he said, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”151 The Holy Spirit, then, had not yet been sent to us, since he had not yet ascended to the Father. So he prevents Mary because she had not yet received the Spirit, saying, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father,” that is, I have not yet sent the Holy Spirit to you. This is a type of the churches. Accordingly we keep from the holy table even those who understand the divinity of Christ and have confessed their faith (that is, the catechumens) when they have not been enriched with the Holy Spirit. After all, he does not dwell in those who are not yet baptized. But once they are made participants in the Holy Spirit, nothing prevents them from touching Christ our Savior. That is why to those who wish to partake in the mystical blessing, the ministers of the divine mysteries announce, “The holy things to the holy people,” teaching that participation in the holy things is appropriate for those who are sanctified by the Spirit. [120]
The Son is by nature God, even though he is found calling the Father his God on account of us.
For reasons that we have already explained, he does not allow Mary to touch his flesh, even though she intensely longs to do so because of her love for God. But he rewards her for being by his side, and he doubly repays her for her intense faith and love, showing that for those who have reverence for him, their reverence will not fail to bear fruit. And more glorious still, first in her (I mean Mary), the entire female race, so to speak, is crowned with double honor and delivered from their ancient frailties. First she mourned, with Christ as the reason for her tears, but she turned her grief into joy when she was told to stop crying by the one who in ancient times imposed the sentence that made women easily overcome by attacks of sorrow. It was said to the woman somewhere by God, “In pain you shall bring forth children.”152 But just as he subjected her to sorrows in paradise then, when she put herself in service to the words of the serpent and became a servant of the devil’s evil works, so also once again in a garden he commands her to stop crying. Releasing her [121] from the curse that subjected her to sorrow, he bids her to become the first messenger of the great good tidings and to tell the disciples the good news of his journey to heaven. This was so that just as the first woman, who was the origin of all, was condemned for being a minister of the devil’s words, and through her the entire female gender was condemned as well, so also she who served our Savior’s words and announced the tidings that lead to eternal life might free the entire female gender from blame. So the Lord grants to Mary not only that she stop crying and no longer have a heart that is easily disposed to sorrow but also that she have beautiful feet. According to the voice of the prophet, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”153 though the first woman did not have beautiful feet, since she brought no good news when she advised our forefather to transgress the divine command. That Mary is worthy of admiration we may conclude from the fact that she was deemed worthy of mention in prophecy. What did it say about her and the women with her who brought the good news of the Savior’s resurrection to the holy disciples? “Come here, you women who come from a spectacle; for it is a people of no understanding.”154 This divine prophecy practically commands these women, who truly love Christ, to come quickly to announce the events they had witnessed. It also condemns the Jews’ lack of understanding, since they ridiculed the message of Christ our Savior’s resurrection.
Although there are other women there (since it pleased the other Evangelists to record this), the wise John made mention only of Mary. But we will find that the words of the saints do not contradict one another. It is likely that John only mentioned Mary Magdalene because she had the most intense impulse of love for Christ, [122] and she outran the others to see the tomb and be in the garden and look through every place around the tomb in search of his body, since she truly thought that the Lord had been taken away. Results are always ascribed to those who take the lead in thought and action, even though there might be others who participate in both.
Therefore, to her honor and glory and everlasting fame, the Savior granted to Mary that she proclaim the good news to the brothers that “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” You should accept this great and profound mystery and not allow your heart to leap over the rule of right divine doctrine. Do you hear how the only begotten Word of God became like us that we might become like him, as far as this is possible for our nature and as far as it pertains to our renewal by grace? He humbled himself that he might raise what is humble by nature to his own height; and he wore the form of a slave, even though he was by nature Lord and Son, that he might transfer what is a slave by nature into the glory of sonship, in conformity with his own likeness, like him. Since he became like us (that is, a human being) in order that we might become like him (I mean gods and sons), he receives our properties into himself and he gives us his own in return.
You may well want to ask how and in what way this takes place—and reasonably so. I will explain it as well as I can. First, though we are in the category of servants by nature (since creatures are servants of the creator), he calls us his brothers and he refers to God as the common Father of himself and us. Then, making humanity his own because of his likeness to us, he calls our God his God, even though he is Son by nature. [123] We ascend to honors above our nature by our likeness to him, for though we are not sons by nature, we are called sons of God, since he cries out in us through his own Spirit, “Abba! Father!”155 In the same way he—since he has taken on our form in that he has become a human being according to the Scriptures—has God as his God, even though he is true God from God by nature. Therefore, do not be offended when you hear that he calls God his God, but rather examine this as one who is devoted to learning and consider wisely the precise wording. He says that God is his Father and our God, and both statements are true. By nature and in truth the God of all is the Father of Christ. When it comes to us, however, he is not our Father by nature, but rather our God, since he is creator and Lord. But since the Son has mixed himself with us, in a manner of speaking, he grants to our nature the honor that properly and strictly speaking belongs to him when he refers to his own Father as our common Father. Furthermore, he takes into himself what belongs to our nature on account of his likeness to us. He calls his own Father his God, since he was unwilling to dishonor his likeness to us due to his mercy and love for humanity. If you wish to accuse him ignorantly for this statement, and if it seems intolerable to you that the Lord should refer to God the Father as his God, you will foolishly find fault with the oikonomia that was accomplished for you. You will dishonor your benefactor for whom you ought to give thanks and foolishly slander the way he manifested his love for us. If he humbled himself, “disregarding the shame,”156 and became human for you, then the charge of humiliation applies to you, sir, while exceptionally great admiration belongs to him who chose to suffer this for you. I am astonished [124] that you only pay attention to the emptying (since he did empty himself for us), but you do not consider the filling. You see the humiliation, but you do not recognize the exaltation. After all, how was he emptied if you do not recognize him to be perfect as God? And how was he humbled if you do not take into account the exalted attributes of his ineffable nature? Therefore, though he was fully and completely perfect as God, he emptied himself for you and brought himself down to your likeness. Though he was exalted as the Son and was of the very substance of the Father, he humbled himself by becoming human and, as far as his nature allowed, became inferior to the exalted attributes of the divine glory. He is therefore God and man in the same person.157 He is exalted because of his Father, since he is God from God and true Son from the Father. But he is humble because of us, since for our sakes he became human like us. Let your mind be at ease, then, when you hear him say, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” It would be appropriate and quite reasonable for him to call his begetter his “Father,” since he is God and Son by nature, and to call God his “God,” since he is human like us.
The race that is especially subject to frailty (I mean the race of women) is healed by our Savior’s compassion, who recapitulates, so to speak, the source of our weakness and transforms it to a better state for the future. Mary announced that she saw the Lord, who had escaped the bonds of death, and that she heard his voice. She brings to the disciples the words of life and the first fruits of the divine gospel. [125]
On the same day when he appeared to Mary and spoke with her, he also appeared to the holy disciples, who were terrified by the intolerable invective of the unholy Jews and so had gathered in a house. And it was likely that they who were so instructed were not without a sound reason for doing so, since they had often been commanded to be ready to escape the wrath of bloodthirsty men. He appears to them miraculously. When the “doors were locked,” it says, Christ “stood among them” unexpectedly. By his divine, ineffable power he transcends the ordinary course of events and shows himself superior to the intentions and designs of those who did this.
Let no one say, “How did the Lord enter unhindered with his solid physical body when the doors were locked?” Rather one should realize that the divinely inspired Evangelist is not speaking of someone like us but of him who is enthroned with God the Father and who easily accomplishes whatever he wishes. He who is by nature true God could not—could not—be subject to the ordinary course of events, as the things created by him are, but he rules over necessity itself and over the fitting and appropriate intentions of each person’s actions. How did he put the sea under his feet and walk through the waves as if on dry ground, even though our bodies cannot use water as a road beneath us? Or how did he accomplish the other miracles [126] by his God-befitting power? You will surely reply that these things are beyond comprehension. Then put this miracle in the same category as the others and do not think as some do, who are carried away by their superficiality to draw the wrong conclusions, that because of this event the Lord was not raised with his body but was stripped of the flesh and completely disconnected from the temple he assumed. If you cannot understand the activity of the ineffable nature, why do you not cry out against human weakness instead? I say that this would be the wiser course. In that case you would embrace in silence the limits set for you by the creator. But if you shake off, as it were, sober reasoning, you will disparage the great mystery of the resurrection, in which we have placed all our hope. Remember the exclamation of Paul: “If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”158 And again, “We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.”159 But what is raised except that which has fallen? And what rises again except that which is bowed down in death? And how can we “look for the resurrection”160 if Christ did not raise his temple, as the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, thus making himself the firstborn from the dead for us? Or how will “this perishable body put on imperishability”161 if, as some think, it is going to descend into complete destruction? What will prevent this from happening to it if it has no hope of resurrection? Do not therefore corrupt the orthodox faith because of this miracle, but control yourself and count it with the other miracles.
Notice how by his miraculous entrance through locked doors he shows once again that he is God by [127] nature and that he is none other than the one who lived among them before. And by baring his side and showing them the nail prints he clearly confirms that he has raised the temple that hung upon the cross and the very body that he bore came to life again, destroying the death that belongs to the flesh, since he is by nature life and God. Why would he need to show them his hands and his side if, as some foolishly maintain, he was not raised with his own flesh? If he wanted the disciples to have some other understanding of him, why did he not appear to them in some other form instead? Why did he not lead them to some other understanding by disdaining the form of the flesh? As it is, however, he is so intent that they should believe in the resurrection of the flesh that even when the moment was right for him to transform his body into ineffable and supernatural glory, he decided in accordance with the oikonomia to appear as he was before, so that he might not be thought to have any other body than the one in which he suffered death on the cross. You may easily learn that our eyes could not have borne the glory of his holy body if Christ had chosen to reveal it, even before his ascension to the Father, if you consider the transfiguration that was displayed to the holy disciples on the mountain. The blessed Matthew the Evangelist writes that he once took “Peter and James and John and went up to the mountain. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like lightning, and his clothes became white like snow.”162 But they could not bear the sight, and they fell to the ground. According to his wise plan, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ did not yet transform his temple into the glory that was due and fitting for it [128] but still appeared in his original form. He did not want to transfer the faith in the resurrection to any other form or body than the one he assumed from the holy virgin, in which he was crucified and died, according to the Scriptures. That is because the power of death extends only to the flesh, from which it is also driven out. If his dead body did not rise, what kind of death has been conquered? How has the power of decay lost its force? Surely it is not by the death of a single rational creature or a soul or an angel or even the Word of God himself. Since death has power only over that which is naturally subject to decay, there is good reason to think that the power of the resurrection pertains to that as well, so that the power of the tyrant is destroyed. So the Lord’s entry through locked doors will be classified among his other signs, at least by those with sober mind.
He also greets the holy disciples. “Peace be with you,” he says, referring to himself as “peace.” Wherever Christ is present, tranquility of spirit will surely follow. That is what Paul prayed God would grant those who believe in him when he said, “The peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and mind.”163 By the peace of Christ beyond all understanding he is referring to none other than his Spirit. Anyone who participates in his Spirit will be filled with all good things.
Here also the blessed Evangelist testifies to the truth of our Savior’s words when he says that the disciples were filled with joy and gladness because they saw Jesus. We recall that he wove together an enigmatic statement for them concerning the precious cross and his resurrection from the dead. “A little while,” he said, “and you will no longer see me, and [129] again a little while, and you will see me, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”164 The Jews, whose minds were completely full of madness, rejoiced when they saw Jesus nailed to the cross, but the heart of the holy disciples was weighed down by sheer and unbearable sadness. Since he is life by nature, however, he destroyed the power of death and rose to life again. The joy of the Jews was extinguished, and the lamentation of the holy apostles was turned to joy.165 Gladness bloomed that could not be lost or taken away. Christ will not die again, since he died once “to remove sin,” as it is written.166 Since he lives and exists always, it is clear that he will preserve the unending joy of those who hope in him. Then he greets them again, using his customary words, that is, “Peace be with you.”
In so doing he is laying down a law, as it were, on this point for the children of the church. That is why in the holy gatherings, or synaxes, we say this to one another at the beginning of the mystery. After all, being at peace with one another and with God should be understood to be the fountain, as it were, and beginning of every good thing. That is why Paul too, when he prays that the highest of blessings be granted to those who are called, says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”167 He also exhorts those who do not yet believe to have peace with God. He says, “We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”168 And the prophet Isaiah exhorts us no less when he cries out, “Let us make peace with him. Let us who come make peace.”169 The meaning of this statement is fitting for the arbiter of peace, or rather for the peace of all people, that is, Christ. “For he is our peace,” according to the Scriptures.170 [130]
With these words our Lord Jesus Christ appointed them to be leaders and teachers of the world and stewards of his divine mysteries. He now commands them to shine like lights and illuminate not only the land of Judea, which according to the measure of the divine commandment extends “from Dan to Beersheba,” as it is written,171 but every country under the sun and their inhabitants strewn everywhere. Paul is telling the truth, then, when he says that “no one takes this honor on himself, but only he who is called by God.”172 Our Lord Jesus Christ called his own disciples into the most glorious apostleship before all others. He firmly anchored the whole earth as it was practically shaking and falling, and he made those who were strong enough to support it into its props.173 That is why, through the voice of the psalmist, he also said of the earth and the apostles that “I have strengthened its pillars.”174 After all, the blessed disciples became the pillars, as it were, and foundation of the truth.175 He says that he sent them, just as the Father sent him, demonstrating at the same time the honor of apostleship and the incomparable glory of the authority given to them. At the same time he was probably hinting at the apostolic way of life they would lead. If he thought that he should send his own disciples in this way, just as the Father sent him, was it not necessary that they, who were going to become imitators of the same way of life, should see what the Father sent the Son to do?
Therefore, he explained the character of his apostleship to us in various ways. At one point he said, “I have come to call not the righteous [131] but sinners to repentance.” And again, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”176 In addition, “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”177 Again somewhere else, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”178 Summing up in a few words, then, the activities of apostleship, he says that he has sent them just as the Father sent him, so that they may know from this that they ought to call sinners to repentance, to heal those who are sick—both bodily and spiritually—and in all their actions to seek not their own will, but the will of him who sent them, to save the world, as far as possible, by their teaching. And in fact we will find that the holy disciples are eager to accomplish all these things. There will be no great difficulty in confirming this once we look at the book of Acts and the words of Saint Paul.
After glorifying them with the great honor of apostleship and making them stewards and priests of the divine altar, as I just mentioned, he immediately sanctifies them by his own Spirit, whom he bestows by emphatically breathing into them so that we too may firmly believe that the Holy Spirit is not alien to the Son but is of the same substance with him and proceeds through him from the Father. He also shows that for those appointed by him to the divine apostleship, the gift of the Spirit necessarily follows. Why? They could not [132] do anything pleasing to God or overcome the snares of sin until they were “clothed with power from on high”179 and transformed into something other than what they were. That is why it was said to someone of old, “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will be turned into another man.”180 The prophet Isaiah also declared to us that those who wait on God will “renew their strength.”181 And when the most wise Paul mentioned that he had surpassed some in his labors (that is, in his apostolic work), he immediately added, “Not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”182 In addition to this we also maintain that they would not have understood the mystery of Christ at all or become scrupulous leaders into this mystery if they had not progressed by the torch of the Spirit to the revelation of truths beyond comprehension and reason. That torch enabled them to ascend to teach what they needed to teach. For “no one can say that Jesus is Lord,” as Paul says, “except by the Holy Spirit.”183 Since they were going to say that Jesus is Lord, that is, they were going to proclaim him as God and Lord, they had to receive the grace of the Spirit along with the honor of apostleship. And Christ gave the Spirit not as one serving the desire of another but rather as one supplying him of himself. After all, the Spirit could not come to us from the Father in any other way than through the Son. Therefore, the ancient letter of the law, which contains shadows and types of the truth, ordained that the appointment of priests should be done in a more bodily way, if I may put it like that, in coarse, visible actions. The blessed Moses, as God commanded him, ordered Aaron himself and the Levites to be washed with water.184 Then he slaughtered the ram of consecration and [133] anointed the “lobe of his right ear with the blood,” as it is written.185 He also put some on the “thumb of his right hand and the big toe of his right foot,” sketching out a type of the mystery of Christ like a picture. Here we have water and blood as the instruments of sanctification. How could there be any doubt that the beauty of the truth was being represented in types that were still unclear? Our Lord Jesus Christ transforms the outline of the law into the power of the truth when he consecrates through himself priests of the divine altar. In fact he himself is the ram of consecration. He consecrates through true sanctification, making them sharers of his nature through participation with the Spirit and strengthening, as it were, human nature to a power and glory that is superhuman.
Now there is no doubt that our explanation of these matters clearly does not stray from the truth at any point. But perhaps someone may come with the following question and inquire from a desire to learn: Where and when did the Savior’s disciples receive the grace of the Spirit? When the Savior appeared to them at the house immediately after the resurrection, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” But in the days of the holy Pentecost, when they were gathered together in one place, “suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind; divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them; and they began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”186 Either, one might say, we should think that the grace of the Spirit was given to them twice, or we will be ignorant of the time at which they truly became participants with the Holy Spirit—if indeed our Savior’s word turns out to be true as well as what is written in Acts concerning the holy disciples. Well, this question may raise our doubts, [134] especially since Christ himself said somewhere, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”187 Perhaps the one asking the question will say, The truth, that is Christ, cannot lie. So when he explicitly declared that the Paraclete would not come to you if he was not taken up to the Father but he would surely send him when he was above at the Father’s side, how is it that we find him giving the Spirit when he had not yet made his departure from here? Even though what we are investigating is quite obscure and the matter is difficult and likely to make us very uneasy, it has a very fitting solution when we believe that Christ is not like one of us but rather is God from God and exercises authority over his own words in accordance with the fitting oikonomia of his actions.
He promised to send the Paraclete down from heaven to us when he was above at God the Father’s side. And he did this after he departed to the Father, and he granted the most abundant outpouring of the Spirit on those who wished to receive him. One would receive the Spirit by faith in Christ and by holy baptism. Then the statement of the prophet was fulfilled that said, “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”188 However, it was necessary that the Son be seen to cooperate with the Father in giving the Spirit. And it was necessary that those who believe in him understand that he is the power of the Father, which created all things and brought humanity from nonexistence into existence. God the Father, through his own Word, took the original dirt from the ground, as it is written,189 and fashioned a living creature (I mean the man), endowed him with a soul [135] according to his own will and enlightened him by participation in his Spirit. “For he breathed into his face the breath of life,” as it is written.190 And when it happened that he fell from obedience into death and humanity fell from that original honor, God the Father re-created it and brought it back to newness of life through the Son, just as in the beginning. How did the Son bring it back? By the death of his holy flesh he killed death and carried the human race back to incorruption. After all, Christ was raised for us. In order that we may learn that from the beginning he was the creator of our nature and that he was the one who sealed us with the Holy Spirit, the Savior once again grants us the Spirit as the first fruits of our renewed nature by distinctly breathing on the disciples. Moses writes of our creation of old that “he breathed into his face the breath of life.”191 Therefore, just as humanity was formed and came into being in the beginning, so also it is renewed. And just as then it was formed into the image of its creator, so also now it is refashioned by participation in the Spirit to the likeness of its maker. How can there be any doubt that the Spirit forms the image of Christ in the souls of those who receive him, when Paul clearly writes to those who through laziness have fallen back into the observance of the law, “My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you”?192 He is arguing, after all, that Christ is formed in them in no other way than by participation in the Holy Spirit and by living according to the evangelical law. Therefore, Christ restores his own Spirit in his disciples as the first fruits of a nature renewed to incorruption and glory and in the divine image. [136] In addition, we must—must—understand that he is the supplier and giver of the Spirit. That is why he said, “All that the Father has is mine.”193 The Father has his own Spirit from himself and in himself. The Son has this Spirit in himself as well, since he is of the same substance with the Father and comes from him essentially. By nature he has in himself all things that belong to the one who begat him.
From the following we will demonstrate that although there were often many things he promised to do at their fitting time in the future, he nevertheless did them for our edification before the appointed time so that we might truly believe that what he said would surely take place. He promised to raise the dead and to bring back to life those who were lying in the ground and in tombs. “The hour is coming,” he says, “when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”194 And since he wanted to assure us that he could easily accomplish this, he taught us, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life.”195 But since the vastness of the miracle made it difficult to believe that the dead could ever be brought back to life, he does not wait for the time of the resurrection. He gives us a sign by raising Lazarus and the widow’s son and Jairus’s daughter. And what other examples are there? He says that the resurrection of the saints will be exceedingly glorious. “Then,” he says, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”196 But here again, in order that he might be believed to speak the truth, he granted the disciples a vision of this ahead of time. “He took with him Peter and James and John and went up on the mountain, and he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like lightning, and his clothes became white like snow.”197 [137] Therefore, although he promises to do these things in their own time, he does them partially even before the right time as a kind of down payment on the primary act that is being awaited, which will apply to all, so that we may believe without doubt. In the same way, I think, although he said he would send us the Paraclete when he returned to the Father, and he defined that time as the moment when grace would come to all and upon all, nevertheless he brought about a kind of first fruits of his promise in the disciples for the many good and necessary reasons that we discussed before.
Therefore, they receive participation in the Holy Spirit when “he breathed on them,” saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” After all, Christ could not have been lying. He would not have said “receive” if he did not give. But in the days of holy Pentecost, when God made a clearer proclamation of grace and a clearer revelation of the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, tongues of fire appeared. They did not signify the beginning of the gift of the Spirit in them, but rather they referred to the beginning of the gift of languages. It is written that “they began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”198 Do you hear how it says that they began to speak, not that they began to be sanctified, and that the distribution of tongues came upon them as the Spirit, who was in them, brought this about? Just as the Father spoke from heaven to testify about his own offspring, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,”199 and he did this for the edification of the hearers, sending down a voice (or causing it to occur) as a kind of instrument suited to our ears, so also he placed a visible proof of grace on the holy disciples by sending down on them tongues in the form of fire and by making the descent of the Spirit imitate the sound of a “rush of a violent wind.”200 [138] And you will readily understand that this too was given as a sign to the Jews when you hear God, the Lord of all, speaking through the voice of the prophet, “By strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people,” and they will not believe.201 Therefore, he sent down fire in the shape of tongues so that we might believe that the blessed disciples truly participate in the Holy Spirit, that they are crowned with grace given by Christ from above, that they are fit to expound the truth and that the glory of their apostleship is worthy of admiration since they are attested by the gift from on high.
I suppose that we have now said enough about this to give a precise explanation of the meaning of the passage. But since we must take every precaution in our explanation that no offense may spring up among the brothers because of the slander of some, come, let us add the following to what has been said and fend off the babbling that we expect will come from some quarters. We find that it is written in the next passage that “Thomas (who was called the Twin) was not with the disciples when Jesus came.”202 How then, one may ask with good justification, was he truly made a participant of the Holy Spirit, since he was absent when the Savior appeared to the disciples and breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”? We reply that the power of the Spirit extended to everyone who received grace, and the Spirit fulfilled the intention of the one who gave him. And Christ gave the Spirit not to some but to all the disciples. Therefore, they receive the Spirit, even though some are not present, since the abundance of the giver is not limited to those who are present but extends to the entire chorus of the holy apostles.
I will confirm for you from the divine Scriptures themselves that our understanding of this passage is not forced and our explanation is not idiosyncratic. [139] I will cite passages from the books of Moses as proof. The Lord God once commanded the all-wise Moses to choose seventy elders from the assembly of the Jews, and he explicitly promised, “I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them.”203 So Moses brought them together and fulfilled the divine command. Just two, however, of the commanded number of seventy elders were left out and remained in the assembly: Eldad and Medad. Then God placed the divine Spirit on all of them, just as he promised, and those gathered together by Moses immediately received grace and began to prophesy. And the two who were still in the assembly began to prophesy as well. In fact the grace from above came upon them first. Joshua the son of Nun, who was the constant attendant of Moses, at first did not understand the meaning of the mystery. He thought that like Dathan and Abiram, they were rival prophets to those whom Moses had assembled. So he said to him, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. My lord Moses, stop them.”204 And how did that truly wise and great man answer as he wisely recognized the activity of grace and the power of the Spirit that was given to them? “Are you jealous for my sake? Who else would give prophets to the Lord’s people when it is the Lord who puts his Spirit on them?”205 Do you see how he rebukes the words of Joshua, since he did not know what had been done? Would that the Spirit were given to all the people, he says, but that will happen at the proper time, when the Lord of all, that is, Christ, will grant his own Spirit to them by breathing on the holy apostles, as upon the first fruits of those who are due to receive the Spirit, [140] and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, even though Thomas was left out he did not fail to receive the Spirit because the Spirit comes to all who are due to receive him and who are included in the number of the honored disciples.
As he gives the Spirit, Christ says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained,” even though only one who is by nature God has the power and authority to forgive sinners for their sins. After all, who could rightly grant pardon to others for their transgression of the divine law, except the one who gave that law? You may, if you wish, see the point of my statement from human affairs. Who has the authority to alter the decrees of earthly kings, and who tries to set aside the orders issued by the decree and will of the rulers except someone who is invested with royal honor and glory? Only such a person cannot be accused of breaking the law. Wise is the saying, “Whoever says to the king, ‘You are a lawbreaker,’ is insolent.”206 In what way, then, and in what sense did the Savior clothe his disciples with an honor that belongs to the divine nature alone? The Word, who is in the Father, could not miss the mark of what is fitting; he was quite right to do this. He thought it was fitting that they who already had the divine and royal Spirit within them also have the authority to forgive and retain the sins of whomever they want, since the Holy Spirit dwelling in them forgives and retains sins according to his own will, even though the deed may be accomplished through human beings.
The Spirit bearers forgive sins in two ways, at least as I understand it. They invite to baptism those to whom baptism is due because of the purity of their life and their tested [141] allegiance to the faith, while they hinder and exclude from divine grace those who are not yet worthy. Or another way they forgive and retain sins is that they rebuke the children of the church who are sinning and they forgive those who repent, just as Paul handed over the fornicator in Corinth “for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved”207 and admitted him into fellowship once again “so that he might not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow,”208 as he says in his epistles. So when the Spirit of Christ who is in us performs actions that belong to God alone, how could the Spirit not be by nature God, since he is naturally invested with the glorious honor of the divine nature and has authority over the holy law?
The greatest marvels are always attended by unbelief, and whatever is done that surpasses the ordinary is not very easy for hearers to accept. But the sight of the miracle practically drives away doubt, as it drives a person by necessity and force, as it were, to admit it. The most wise Thomas experienced something like this. He does not readily accept the true testimony of the other disciples about our Savior’s resurrection, even though the law of Moses said that every matter will be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses.209 I think that the disciple did not so much disbelieve what was told him as much as he was driven to the depths of sorrow [142] because he was not counted worthy to see our Savior as well. Perhaps he thought he would miss out on this completely. After all, he knew that the Lord was life by nature and that he was not incapable of escaping death itself and destroying the power of decay. (He delivered others from it; how could he not deliver his own flesh?) His exceeding joy looks like unbelief. He practically leaps straight up and asks to see him right away and to be fully convinced that he rose again as he promised. “My children,” said the Savior, “a little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me, and your heart will rejoice.”210 I think that the disciple’s temporary lack of faith is very much in line with the oikonomia, so that by his assurance we too who come after him may believe without a doubt that through the Son the Father brought back to life the flesh that was nailed to the tree and suffered death. For this reason Paul too says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”211 Since the nature of the flesh did not become the supplier of life, but rather this was accomplished by the divine and ineffable nature, which has the ability to give life to all things, the Father acted through the Son upon that divine temple,212 not because the Word was too weak to raise his own body but because whatever the Father does he does through the Son. The Son is his power, and whatever the Son accomplishes is surely accomplished by the Father. We are therefore taught by the blessed Thomas’s slight lack of faith that the mystery of the resurrection is effected in our earthly bodies, and in Christ as the first fruits of our race. We are also taught that he was neither a phantom nor a shadow, as some maintain, [143] fashioned in a human shape and deceptively imitating the characteristics of our form. Nor was he, as others foolishly claim, a “spiritual body,”213 that is, a body that is subtle and ethereal and something other than flesh. (That is how some understand the term spiritual.) Since the entire substance of our hope and the meaning of our irreproachable faith, after the confession of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, is directed to and focused on the mystery of the flesh, the blessed Evangelist very profitably included this incident at the end of the section. Observe how Thomas does not simply want to see the Lord, but he wants to see the “marks of the nails,” that is, the wounds in his flesh. He quite rightly maintains that that is how he will believe and agree with the others that Christ has come back to life truly, that is, he has come back to life in the flesh. After all, that which has died is what one would reasonably understand to come back to life, and that which underwent death would surely be what undergoes resurrection.
Once again he appeared miraculously to his disciples, as God. He did not order the doors to be opened for him so he could come in, as we would. No, he practically disregarded the way things normally work and came within the doors and appeared unexpectedly in the middle of the room, granting also to the blessed Thomas the same kind of miracle he performed before, it seems. He who suffered from a deficiency of faith especially needed—needed—the medicine. [144] He used the greeting that was so often on his lips, and he employed the blessing of peace as his solemn greeting as an example for us, as we have already explained. One might well be astonished at the minute detail here (I mean in this passage). The author of the book took such care with the details, and he was so eager to be scrupulous, that he did not simply say that Christ appeared to the holy disciples but that he did so “after eight days” and that they were gathered together. After all, what else could it mean that they were all brought together in one house? Because of this admirable attention to detail, we maintain that by this Christ established for us the time of our coming together, or synaxis, on his account. He surely visits and in a sense dwells with those who are gathered on account of him, especially on the eighth day, that is, the Lord’s day. Let us count it up, if you please. First he appeared to the other disciples. Then he appears to them again when Thomas is present. Now it is written a little before this that “it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked, and he stood among them.”214 Note that he appeared to the gathered disciples on the first day of the week, that is, the Lord’s day, and we see him appearing to them again no less on the eighth day after that. Now just because he says “after eight days,” we should not assume he means the ninth day. When he says this, he is including the eighth day, on which he appeared, in that number.
We have an excellent reason, then, for holding our holy assemblies in the churches on the eighth day. And if I may speak more mystically, which is what these ideas demand, [145] we close the doors and Christ visits and appears to us all, both invisibly and visibly: invisibly as God and visibly in his body. He gives us his holy flesh and allows us to touch it. By the grace of God we approach to participate in the mystical blessing, and we receive Christ into our hands in order that we too may firmly believe that he has truly raised his own temple. It should be quite clear that communion in the mystical blessing is a confession of Christ’s resurrection by what he said when he instituted the pattern of the mystery. He broke bread, as it is written, and gave it to them saying, “This is my body, which is given for you for the remission of sins. This do in remembrance of me.”215 Therefore, participation in the holy mysteries is a true confession and remembrance of the Lord’s death and resurrection for us and on our behalf. By it we are filled with divine blessing. Let us therefore avoid doubt as a destructive thing, and after touching Christ let us be found completely faithful and full of firm conviction.
Now the attentive reader will recall that he prevented Mary Magdalene from touching him by saying explicitly, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”216 He allows Thomas, on the other hand, to touch his side and feel the marks of the nails with his finger. The clear explanation of the reason for this has already been given; nevertheless I will mention it again, but I will keep it short. It was not yet time for her to touch him, since she had not yet been sanctified by the grace of the Spirit. Since Christ was still with us and had not yet ascended to the Father in heaven, it was impossible to see the descent of the Paraclete accomplished among human beings. [146] But this was proper for Thomas, since he had been enriched by the Spirit along with the others. As we have already explained, just because he was not present, that does not mean that he was without participation in the Spirit. The generosity of the giver extended to him as well, since the gift was given to the holy disciples as a whole.
I think that I should investigate the following as well. Thomas touched the Savior’s side and found the wounds of the soldier’s spear and saw the marks of the nails. How then, someone might ask, do these signs of decay appear in his incorruptible body? The holes that still remain and are preserved in his hands and side and the marks of the puncture wound made by the steel constitute evidence of physical decay, even though the true and incontrovertible fact that his body was transformed to incorruption means that it must have been stripped of decay and everything that goes with it. If someone happens to be lame, will they rise again with a maimed foot or leg? And if anyone has lost their eyes in this life, will they be raised bereft of sight? How then, someone might say, have we shaken off decay if the damage from it is still preserved and rules over our bodies?
The answer to this question must be found, I think, and we give the following explanation of the difficulty at hand. We are eager to agree as much as we can that at the time of the resurrection no remnant of imported decay will be left in us, but as the wise Paul said concerning this body, what is sown “in weakness will be raised in power,” and what is sown “in dishonor will be raised in glory.”217 What else could it mean to look forward to a resurrection of this body in “power” and “glory” [147] but that it will strip off all weakness and dishonor due to decay and suffering, and return to its original creation? After all, it was not created for death and decay. When Thomas made his request for clear confirmation, our Lord Jesus Christ appropriately left no pretext for lack of faith on our part, but he appeared just as Thomas asked to see him. Even when he ascended to heaven itself and made known his mystery to the powers above, to the rulers and authorities and to the commanders of the ranks of angels, he still appeared in this same form so that they might believe that the Word who is from the Father and in the Father truly became a human being for us, and they might see that he cared so much for his creatures that he died to give us life. And in order to make the meaning of my explanation clearer to the hearers I will add the words spoken by the voice of Isaiah on these matters. He says, “Who is this that comes from Edom, from Bozrah in garments stained crimson?”218 Now those who shout this (I mean, “Who is this that comes from Edom?” that is, from the earth) are the angels and rational powers. They say it because they are marveling at the Lord as he ascends into the heavens. They see him practically dyed in his own blood, and they say, not yet understanding the mystery, “Why are your robes red, and your garments like theirs who tread the wine press?”219 They compare the color of blood to new wine, recently pressed. And how does Christ reply to them? First, in order to show them that he is by nature true God, he says, “I speak righteousness,”220 using the word speak instead of [148] teach. How could the one who teaches righteousness not be understood by all to be the lawgiver? And if he is the lawgiver, how is he not surely God as well? When Christ shows the angels too the marks of the nails, they then say to him, “What are these wounds in your hands?” And the Lord answers them, “The wounds I received in the house of my beloved.”221 After all, Israel was his beloved and wounded the Lord with nails and a spear, since the atrocities of the soldiers could reasonably be ascribed to the Jews. They were the ones who led the Lord to his suffering. So when Christ wanted to make the holy angels themselves certain that he had truly become a human being and that he had endured the cross for us and had been resurrected and had returned to life from the dead, he was not satisfied with mere words, but he showed them the signs of his suffering. What, then, is so astonishing or strange if, when he wanted to free the blessed Thomas of his unbelief, he showed him the nail marks and appeared contrary to expectation for the benefit of all, so that we might believe without a doubt that the mystery of the resurrection has been accomplished, since the body that was raised was none other than the one that suffered death?
He who had just been slow to believe what he ought is now eager to confess it, and in a short time he is completely healed. After only eight days the hindrances to his weak faith were removed by Christ, who showed him the nail marks and his side. But perhaps someone will reply, Why, tell me, did the mind of the holy disciples carry out such a subtle [149] and precise investigation? Would not the sight of his body have been sufficient—the features of his face and the measure of his stature—for proof that the Lord was truly raised from the dead and recognized? What do we say to this? The mind of the divinely inspired disciples was not free from doubt even though they saw the Lord. They thought that he was not actually the one who used to accompany them and live with them and who hung on the tree but that he was a spirit, cunningly fashioned in the image of the Savior, simulating the form that they knew. However, they slipped into this way of thinking not without some occasion that reasonably suggested it to them. He miraculously entered through closed doors, even though a coarse earthly body requires a hole big enough for it and necessitates that the doors of houses correspond to its size. Therefore, it was quite beneficial for our Lord Jesus Christ to bare his side for Thomas and clearly display the wounds in his flesh, giving proof to them all through Thomas. Though Thomas alone is recorded as saying, “Unless I stretch out my hands and see the mark of the nails and put my hand in his side, I will not believe,”222 the charge of a lack of faith was common to them all. We will find that the mind of the other disciples was not free from trouble, even though they said to Saint Thomas, “We have seen the Lord.”223 It is easy to see that this explanation does not depart from the truth by looking at what the divine Luke said concerning these matters. “While they were talking about this,” he says, “he stood among them” (he being Christ) “and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said [150] to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your heart? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb, and he took it and ate in their presence.”224 Do you see how the thought of unbelief lurks not only in the blessed Thomas, but the mind of the other disciples is sick with this suffering as well? Look! Look! When he saw their little faith even after they beheld the wounds of the cross, he thought that he should convince them by another act that was not at all suited to a ghost but belonged properly to earthly bodies and to the nature of the flesh. So he ate the fish that was brought to him, or the piece of one. We will propose that each act was necessary, as it were. Corruption no longer applied to him after the resurrection of his holy flesh since he rose again to incorruption, and he did not require ordinary food as before. Nevertheless he showed the marks of the nails and did not refuse to partake of food so that he might root the great mystery of the resurrection and implant faith in it in the souls of us all. His actions are completely alien to the nature of spirits. The marks of the nails, the traces of wounds, the partaking of bodily food—how and in what way could these belong to a naked spirit, unconnected with any flesh, since these things belong to the flesh according to the law of its nature and the condition in which it exists? Therefore, that none may think that the Lord was raised as a mere spirit or an intangible [151] body, shadowy and ethereal, which some are in the habit of calling “spiritual,” but that they may believe that the same body that was “sown in corruption,” as Paul says,225 rose again, he displayed and performed acts that belong to a coarse body. What we said at first, however, that the blessed disciple disbelieved not so much because of the weakness of his mind but because of his excess of joy, will not stray from right thinking. We have heard the blessed Luke say of all the other disciples that “in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”226 It was wonder therefore that made the disciples slow to believe. But since there was no longer an excuse for unbelief, since they saw him, the blessed Thomas accordingly made an utterly correct confession of him, saying, “My Lord and my God!” For anyone would agree that he who is Lord by nature and has power over all is truly God as well, just as power over all things obviously belongs exclusively to him who is God by nature, and the glory of lordship surrounds him.
We should also note that he says, “My Lord and my God”227 in the singular and with the article. He does not simply say “a lord of mine and a god of mine,” so that no one may think that he means “lord” and “god” in the sense that those terms are used of us or the holy angels. There are many “lords” and “gods” in heaven and on earth, as the wise Paul taught us.228 But he recognizes him as the one Lord and God, properly speaking, begotten from the Father, who is Lord and God by nature, when he says, “My Lord and my God.” And, what is an even greater confirmation of the truth, the Savior heard his disciples saying this, firmly believing that he was truly the Lord and God, and he did not think it necessary to rebuke him. [152] Christ, then, approved his faith, and for good reason. And you may quite readily see that this is true, because at the end of the Gospel, he says to the one so convinced and believing, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”229 If he commands one who thinks this way to teach all nations and appoints him to instruct the world in his mysteries, he wants us to have the same faith. Furthermore, he is truly Lord by nature and God, even after he became human. Note that the disciple offered his confession to him after touching his hands and feet and side. He did not divide Emmanuel into a pair of sons, but he recognized him as one and the same in the flesh. For there is “one Lord Jesus Christ,” according to the Scriptures.230
This saying of the Savior is perfectly arranged and can bring us the greatest profit. He gave limitless forethought to our souls in this point as well, since he is good and “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as it is written.231 That is the reason for the miracle. He needed to show his customary patience to Thomas, who said this, along with the other disciples, who thought that he was a spirit and an apparition, and to show them the marks of the nails and his pierced side—which he was very eager to do to provide proof for the world. And there was no less a need for him to partake of food, contrary to his use and need, so that there may be no pretext at all that would lure to unbelief those who sought the benefits of his passion. Moreover, it was necessary for him to give our safety no small consideration. And on top of that he needed to have another goal in view: to make sure that nothing would easily drag future generations down into unbelief. [153] Indeed, it was likely that some would wander from the straight path and dismiss the faith, practicing a spurious kind of caution out of ignorance, and refuse to accept the resurrection of the dead. They would step forward like the doubting disciple and say to us, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.”232 What kind of proof would have been sufficient for them, since Christ is no longer bodily on earth but has ascended into the heavens? And would they not have appeared right in saying this at times, since they would clearly be imitating the Savior’s disciple in considering it noble not to believe too readily but to ask for definitive proof and to demand for themselves what was shown to the holy disciples? Christ therefore restrains any future descent into such thinking and keeps people from falling into it. As true God, he knew—he knew—the devil’s evil intent and his deceptive devices. So he shows that the disciples who believe even without seeing are blessed, since they are truly worthy of admiration. Why? Undisputed faith is proper to those things that lie before our eyes because there is nothing to cause us to doubt. But if someone should accept what is not seen and believe as true what the words of a teacher of the mysteries delivers to the ears, that person has honored him who was preached with the most admirable faith. Blessedness will follow everyone who believes through the voice of the holy apostles, who were “eyewitnesses” of Christ’s accomplishments and “servants of the word,” as Luke says.233 We must adhere to them if we desire eternal life and are eager to dwell in the mansions above. [154]
In a way he is summarizing his book and making it clear to the hearers what the purpose of his gospel proclamation is. This book was composed, he says, “that you may come to believe, and that through believing you may have eternal life.” He also says that the signs were many. He does not limit the accomplishments and miraculous activities of our Savior only to those that were known and reported by him, but he assigns, as it were, to the other Evangelists the task of adding whatever might occur to them from their accurate recollection, if they wish. Not all of them have been written in this book, he says, but I have included only those that would most likely have sufficient ability to convince the hearers that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”
That is what the divinely inspired Evangelist says.
I, however, think that it would be profitable for me to add the following. If the entire force of what is written works this faith in us and convinces us with persuasive power to hold that he who was begotten of the holy virgin, who was called Jesus by the voice of the angel, is the same one who is proclaimed to be Christ by the divinely inspired Evangelist—and this same one and not another is not simply a son but is uniquely and properly the “Son of God”—then what excuse could they give and what judgment will they receive on that great day, who out of ignorance split up the faith and then try to teach others to think that there are two christs? [155] They cut him up into a human being, properly speaking, and God the Word, properly speaking, even after the completely ineffable and incomprehensible union and coming together with the body. In so doing they err and wander far from the truth and “deny the Master who bought them.”234 If we examine the definition of his nature235 when we form a conception of Christ, we find that the flesh is different from God the Word, who is from the Father and in the Father. But if we consider the meaning of the flesh’s union with him, probing as far as possible this great and incomprehensible mystery, we realize that the Word is one entity236 with his flesh without being changed into flesh. We do not say he was changed because the nature of the Word is unalterable and unchangeable and admits of no turning whatsoever. Rather we maintain, in accordance with our holy and divinely inspired Scriptures, that Jesus is one Christ and one Son, who is understood to be both from the divine temple, which contains the full definition of humanity, and from the living Word. Consider that this same thing is true for us as well and holds for our nature. We are combined into one human being from soul and body. The body is different from the soul in the body, according to the definition of each, but they come together to produce one animal. And they cannot be separated at all after they are united with each other.
Our Lord Jesus Christ lavishes upon his disciples the enjoyment of seeing him, which they greatly longed for, and he grants them a third visit, in addition to the earlier two, that their mind may be secure and unswervingly steadfast in their faith in him. Since they have now seen him not once but three times, how could they not have their mind released from all lack of faith and become competent instructors in the mysteries of the dogmas of godliness for all the others? Peter leaves to go fishing along with the others. They accompany him as he goes to do this, and perhaps Christ our Savior beneficially arranged these events. After all, when he placed the yoke of discipleship on them and called them to the honor of apostleship he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”238 That he may prove to them in a coarse type that what he said will surely come about and that his promise will reach fulfillment in the power of the truth, he gives them clear evidence from the task they are engaged in. The blessed disciples were practicing their trade and were fishing. They “caught nothing,” [157] even though they had toiled “all night.” “Just after daybreak,” when the sun had just begun to shed its rays of light, “Jesus stood on the beach.” But they did not realize that it was he. And when he questioned them and asked whether they had in their nets anything to put on the table, they said that they had caught nothing at all. Then he commands them to let down their net on the “right side of the boat.” And even though they labored all night in vain and to no profit, they say, “At your word”239 we will let down the net. When they do it, the weight of the fish that are caught overpower the strength of those who are dragging them up.
That is what the divinely inspired Evangelist related to us. Now we have just said that the Savior truly gave the holy apostles proof, by this crystal-clear act and accomplishment, that they would fish for people just as he said. So come let us transform, as much as possible, what was done in type into the beautiful truth that it signified. Let us testify to the truth of the Savior’s words. Let us unfold as best we can each event that happened and present to those who come upon these pages an opportunity for spiritual contemplation (and no mean one at that, I think). “Give opportunity to the wise, and they will become wiser still; teach the righteous and they will receive more instruction.”240 I think the fact that the disciples fished all night but caught absolutely nothing and spent their labor in vain signifies something like this: we will find no one—or at least very few—who was fully persuaded by the proclamation of the ancient teachers and who was captured in their net to do what is perfectly pleasing to God. That which is very small is tantamount to nothing, especially when it is taken from so many. Indeed, the people throughout the whole world are rightly thought to be very numerous. What then [158] hindered and got in the way so as to render the labor of the ancients vain? What made their proclamation fruitless, as it were? It was night and still dark, and an intellectual mist and a demonic deception settled over the eyes of their mind that did not permit them to see the true divine light. There was “no one who does good,” as the psalmist says, “no, not one. All have turned away and together have become worthless.”241 Even though Israel had been caught, as it were, by Moses, it was as though they had not been caught at all. They practiced worship in types and shadows and had no instruction in the law that leads to perfection. We will find that worship in types is utterly useless, as it were, and contrary to God. This is easy to see from the fact that he rejects sacrifices of blood and every kind of earthly and bodily offering. “Why do you bring me frankincense from Saba,” he says, “and cinnamon from a distant land? Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please me.”242
We say this not to dishonor the first command that was given long ago or to accuse the law but rather to point out to the hearers that since God, the Lord of all, has regard only for the beauty of the gospel way of life, those who are caught in the net of the law to engage in profitless worship in shadows and types are no different than those who are not caught at all, until the “time of reformation”243 dawns, since Christ explicitly says, after he became human, “I am the truth.”244 And if it is necessary to add a few words to this explanation, I will not shrink from doing so, because it is profitable. Those who were called by Moses to learn the law rejected the law that was given and practically laughed out loud at the holy commandment. They turned to the precepts of human teaching245 and fell into such stubbornness and hardness of heart [159] that even the word of the holy prophets lost its power. That is why they cried out, “Lord, who has believed what we have heard?”246 And Jeremiah says, “Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole earth! I have not helped anyone, nor has anyone helped me, but my strength has failed me because of those who curse me.”247 How then could anyone refuse to grant that unbelieving and stubborn Israel was on a par with those who had not been caught at all, when they trampled on the law that was given through Moses? We should not need to prove that the multitude of the Gentiles were still uncaught and remained completely outside the net of divine teaching. Darkness and the devil’s night filled their heart, driving out the light of the true knowledge of God. So “they worked all night,” so to speak, but their spiritual nets were devoid of fish before the advent of Christ. But “just after daybreak,” that is, when the devil’s mist was dispersed and the true light (namely, Christ) arose, he asked the workers whether they had anything in their nets that would serve as food for God, who thirsts, as it were, for the salvation of all. (After all, the Scripture refers to the conversion of the Samaritans as his “food.”)248 When they answer his question with the clear admission that they have absolutely nothing, he commands them to let down “the net to the right side of the boat.” The blessed Moses let down the net of instruction through the law and the letter. But he was fishing on the left side, as it were, while the commandment of Christ is understood to be on the right side. The instruction of Christ is incomparably greater and far superior to the commandments of the law, both in honor and glory, since the truth surely surpasses the types, the master surely surpasses the servant and [160] the justifying grace of the Spirit surpasses the letter that condemns. Christ’s teaching therefore should be placed on the right side, since the “right side” signifies to us superiority over the Law and the Prophets.
The divinely inspired disciples obey our Savior’s command without hesitation and let down the net. This shows us that they did not seize the grace of apostleship for themselves, but they went on their spiritual fishing trip at his command. “Go and make disciples of all nations,” he says.249 And they say that they are letting down the net at Christ’s word. After all, the only way they catch fish is with the words of our Savior and the gospel commands. There was a great multitude of fish inside the net, so that the disciples could no longer easily pull it up. That is because those who were netted and believed are countless, and the miracle of it is obviously greater than and truly surpasses the strength of the holy apostles. It is the work of Christ, who gathers the multitude of the saved by his own power into the apostolic net, as it were, the church on earth.
Again in this passage the author of the book refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He is so loved, it seems, because of his great mental power, his purity of mind, the acuity of the eyes of his heart and his great capacity for ready comprehension. In fact he grasped the meaning of the sign before all the others. He realized that Christ was present and told the others without any hesitation, boldly announcing, “It is the Lord!” The divinely inspired Peter leaped into the sea, thinking that it would take too long to go by boat. He was always fervent in zeal and stirred up to boldness and love for Christ. The rest followed his lead, bringing the net along with the boat. Next they saw a “charcoal fire.” Christ had miraculously lit a fire and placed a fish on it that had been caught by his ineffable power. This too was by his design, since it was not the hand of the holy apostles or the preaching of the spiritual fishers among us but the power of the Savior that began the work. First he netted one as a first fruit of those to come. (And we do not mean exactly one, but one signifies a very small number.) After that the disciples net a multitude when they are strengthened by his divine will so that they can catch what they are after. Peter pulls up the net, by which [162] we may understand that the labor of the holy apostles will not be in vain. They placed the multitude of caught fish before him who instructed them to fish, and the quantity of the fish is indicated by the number one hundred and fifty-three. The number one hundred, it seems to me, is best explained as signifying the fullness of the Gentiles. The number one hundred is the most perfect number, being composed of ten decads. That is why our Lord Jesus Christ himself says in one place that he has one hundred sheep,250 thereby indicating that he possesses the full number of rational creatures. And in another place he says that the best soil will bear fruit one hundredfold,251 referring to the holy soul’s perfection in fruit bearing. The number fifty, on the other hand, is there to indicate the elect remnant of Israel, saved by grace. That is because fifty is half of one hundred and falls short of the perfect number. The number three, all by itself, can refer to the holy and consubstantial Trinity. The life of those who have been caught by faith is ascribed to and connected with the Trinity—to the Trinity’s glory and eternal praise. God is in all believers, and he keeps those who have been persuaded by the gospel proclamation near to him by means of sanctification. After the nets were pulled up our Lord said to the holy disciples, “Come and have breakfast.” He thereby teaches them that after their toil and sweat in calling people to salvation, they would recline with him, as the Savior himself says.252 They would be with him forever, as an indescribable feast is set before them, that is, a divine and spiritual feast that surpasses our understanding. Christ further wishes to evoke the statement in the Psalms, “You shall eat the fruit of your labor.”253 [163] They do not take food for themselves and eat it, but Christ gives it to them. By this type, then, we may learn that at that time, Christ himself, as Lord, will bestow divine gifts upon us and distribute what will benefit us.
Peter set out to reach him before the others, refusing to go by boat, it seems, because of the incomparable fervor and zeal of his love for Christ. Therefore, he reaches the land first and hauls in the net. He was always an impulsive man, easily excited to zeal for action and speech. That is why he is the first to confess his faith when the Savior poses a question to them in the region of Caesarea Philippi, saying, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”254 The others respond, Some say Elijah, “others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”255 But when Christ then asks, “Who do you say that I am?”256 he leaps up before the others and becomes their spokesman and says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”257 Moreover, when the band of soldiers [164] came, together with the officers of the Jews, to take Jesus away to the rulers, all the rest “deserted him and fled,” as it is written,258 but Peter cut off Malchus’s ear with a sword.259 He thought that he ought to defend his teacher by any means necessary, even though his action was completely out of step with his teacher. Since he came more eagerly than the others, Christ poses the question to him of whether he loves him more than they do, and he asks it three times. Peter says yes and confesses his love, maintaining that Christ himself is a witness to his state of mind. After each confession he hears Christ urge him in different words to care for the rational sheep.
I, at least, think—since we must search out the hidden meaning in this passage—that these words were not written at random, but the statement is pregnant with meaning and the sense of the passage surely contains something hidden inside. Would it not be reasonable for someone to ask why he questions Simon alone, even though the other disciples were standing there? And what did he mean by “Feed my lambs” and the other similar statements? We reply that Peter was already appointed to the divine apostleship along with the other disciples, since our Lord Jesus Christ himself named them “apostles,” according to the Scripture.260 But when the events related to the plot of the Jews came about, Peter fell in the middle of it all. The divinely inspired Peter was seized by sheer terror and denied the Lord three times. Christ heals the one who had succumbed, and he elicits in various ways three confessions, which Peter makes as compensation, as it were, to counterbalance his error and set things right. Anyone would grant that a verbal transgression forms the basis of a merely verbal accusation against him, and it can be wiped out in the same way. [165] He asks him to say whether he loves him more than the others. Indeed, since he experienced more patience and received forgiveness of his transgressions with a more abundant hand, as it were, how could he not feel greater love than the others and repay his benefactor with extreme affection? All the disciples turned and fled together since the inhumanity of the Jews instilled unbearable terror in them and the ferocity of the soldiers threatened them with a cruel death when they came to arrest Jesus. Peter’s additional transgression, however (his threefold denial), was peculiar to him.
Since he received more forgiveness than the others, he is asked to say whether he also loves more than they. As the Savior says, the one who is forgiven much will also love much.261 This is a type for the churches that they ought to ask for a threefold confession of Christ from those who have chosen to love him by coming to holy baptism. By contemplating this passage teachers will gain the knowledge that they cannot please the chief shepherd262 of all, that is, Christ, unless they are concerned for the strength and well-being of the rational sheep.263 That is how the divinely inspired Paul was. To the weak he became weak,264 and he referred to those who came to believe through him, and who chose to gain repute through the glory of their deeds, as the boast of his apostleship and his “joy and crown.”265 He knew—he knew—that this was the visible fruit of perfect love for Christ. Anyone may perceive this through sound reasoning. If he died for us, how could he not consider the salvation and life of all to be worthy of his full concern? And [166] if those who “sin against their brothers and wound their conscience when it is weak” truly “sin against Christ,”266 how could it not be true to say that people are showing reverence to the Lord himself when they lead by the hand the mind of new believers and those who anticipate being called to faith, and are eager to establish them firmly in the faith through any help they can give them? Therefore, by the triple confession of the blessed Peter, his transgression of denial, which also happened three times, was nullified. And we understand the Lord’s statement, “Feed my lambs,” to be a kind of renewal of the apostleship already given to him, which does away with the shame of his fall that happened in the meantime and erases his cowardice that stems from human weakness.
With much grace and refinement, our Lord Jesus Christ testifies to the genuine love that his disciple has for him and the high honor of his extreme piety and endurance. He tells him clearly what his apostleship will lead to and how his life will end. He predicts that someone will take him to a place he does not wish to go, that is, the place where his persecutors, or those who condemned him to death, fixed him to a cross. He is saying that the place of the cross is the place where Peter does not wish to go. None of the saints suffers [167] voluntarily. But even though death is bitter and it comes upon them against their will, they nevertheless cling to the glory that comes from God and despise earthly life. So Christ predicted that the blessed Peter would be taken off to a miserable and hateful place of death. He would never have achieved this level of glory, and neither would he have been crucified for Christ, if he had not followed the charge to care for the rational sheep and if he had not, by the power of Christ rooted in him, called to faith those who went astray because they were entangled in the nets of the devil’s deception. Those who dared to commit this crime killed the blessed Peter without being able to charge him with anything except reverence for Christ. One can see from this, then, that our Lord Jesus Christ’s prediction of Peter’s death was both profitable and necessary, so that by his impending suffering he might seal, as it were, and prove true what he said to Christ: “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” The fact that he died for proclaiming Christ—how could this not be clear and incontrovertible proof of his love, which shows that he did not fall short of perfect love (I mean love for Christ) in any way? Christ then adds to what he said to Peter the statement, “Follow me.” This refers in its ordinary sense to following as a disciple. Enigmatically, however, it probably hints at nothing else than this: Follow my footsteps into danger, and walk on the same road, as it were, helping by your words and deeds the souls of those who are called. Do not hesitate at all to go to your death on the tree which, Christ says, will happen to you when you are old. [168] He did not allow terror to come upon him too early but delayed the attack of fear for a long time.
The divinely inspired Evangelist refers to himself obscurely, but he still indicates who is meant. He is the one who is beloved and who reclined at Christ’s breast during the supper and asked who would betray him. When Peter saw him, he tried to find out and wanted to learn what dangers he would face in the future and how his life would end. But his question seemed inappropriate. It was meddlesome and overly inquisitive of him, when he had received knowledge of his own future, to inquire about the future of others. I think that is the reason the Lord gave an answer that did not directly address what was being asked and sought. Rather he diverted the aim of the questioner to something else. He did not say that John would not die but, If I will that he live until I come, what is that to you? That is to say, You have heard, [169] Peter, about yourself. Why do you long to know about others and unearth the divine decree, as it were, before its time? If he never dies at all, he says, how will this console your heart? A wise and prudent person who is going to suffer will not care whether someone else is delivered from this or not. Their own suffering applies to them, but they will receive no comfort whatsoever from the misfortune or joy of someone else. The meaning of the passage is pregnant with some sense like this. Peter’s statement about this implies that the blessed Peter anxiously desired to know what would happen to John—whether John would surely face the same peril or perhaps a different one—as a comfort to him in his own situation. Do not be surprised at this but rather understand it as follows. It is true for us as well, even though it is completely pointless, that we do not want to be the only ones suffering or about to undergo some horrible experience, but we want to hear that others have already suffered it or are going to suffer it.
I think that none of the wise would doubt that the Lord would not have loved John if he had not been especially apt and illustrious in virtue, and practiced and perfectly equipped in every good work. After all, God could never be caught inclining for no reason to those who are not worthy of his love. That malady most properly belongs to human beings. He is completely invulnerable to any assault and inroad of passion. He walks firmly in the path of every kind of [170] virtue, or rather he himself is every kind of virtue. So how could he not use judgment in this matter too and make his inclination free of all blame—I mean his inclination to love the one who is worthy of it? After this fine introduction saying that he is loved, he says in all simplicity and humility that he has “testified to these things,” admirably and elegantly inviting the hearers to assent to what he has written and testified, as they must. After all, the preacher of the truth could not lie. That is why he also says, “We know that his testimony is true.” It is dangerous, then, and truly terrible to lie at all, since people do not know how to bridle their tongues. And the truth would not have loved someone who violated the truth.
The multitude of the divine signs, he says, is vast, and the catalog of his deeds is clearly innumerable. But these have been taken from many thousands since they are able to bring the most profit to the hearers. Let the one who is teachable and loves instruction not blame the author of the book, he says, if he did not record the rest. Indeed, if every individual accomplishment had been recorded with nothing left out, the immeasurable multitude of books would have filled the world. We maintain that, as it is, the power of the Word has accomplished more than enough. Anyone may see that thousands of miracles were accomplished by our Savior’s power. The preachers of the Gospels, however, wrote down the more glorious ones, it seems, and the ones that could strengthen the hearers in an incorruptible faith and give them instruction [171] in morality and doctrine. That is so they might be glorious in the orthodox faith and adorned all over with works that aim at reverence. Then they might greet the heavenly city and be joined to the church of the firstborn and so enter the very kingdom of heaven in Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to God the Father with the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.