Saint John - Chapter 5
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| Healing at Bethesdsa. J-J Tissot |
There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.
There is another who beareth, &c. Another, viz., God the Father, who at My baptism spoke in thunder from heaven, This is My beloved Son. So S. Cyril, Bede. Again, another, i.e., John the Baptist, testifies to Me. So S. Chrysostom and others. Another then here means, there are others who testify that I am the Son of God, namely, God the Father, John the Baptist, Moses and the Prophets, also My Divine works and miracles. For all of these Christ proceeds to adduce as witnesses to prove that He is Messiah, and the Son of God.
And I know that it is true. So far as I Myself am concerned, I do not need these witnesses, for by Divine knowledge I know that what they testify is true, that I am the Son of God. But I bring forward their testimony for your sakes, that ye may believe what is attested by so many witnesses.
[33] Vos misistis ad Joannem, et testimonium perhibuit veritati.
You sent to John, and he gave testimony to the truth.
Ye sent unto John, &c. Ye sent messengers to him as a man in your estimation holy, and worthy of all credit, to ask him if he were the Messias. John answered that not he, but I, am the Messias. This testimony he gave not out of friendship, or favour to Me, but to the truth. For that he would testify to nothing but the truth, ye yourselves thought, when ye were willing to receive him as the Messiah. Therefore ye cannot reject his testimony, says Euthymius.
[34] Ego autem non ab homine testimonium accipio : sed haec dico ut vos salvi sitis.
But I receive not testimony from man: but I say these things, that you may be saved.
But I receive not, &c. I do not require the witness of John, for I am God, and the Son of God, to whom John, Moses, and the Prophets ought to yield, and be taught by, and receive authority from.
But this I say that ye may be saved: meaning, as S. Chrysostom says, “I do not need the testimony of man, for I am God. But since John, whom ye admire as a prophet, is of so great authority with you, when ye do not believe Me working miracles, I bring back to your remembrance his testimony, that I may draw you and save you.”
[35] Ille erat lucerna ardens et lucens : vos autem voluistis ad horam exsultare in luce ejus.
He was a burning and a shining light:[1] and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light.[2]
[1] He was a burning and shining lamp: Greek, ὁ λύχνος, the illustrious and famous lamp. John was not the light itself, shining of itself (for this was what Christ Himself was), but he was the lamp or lantern which, receiving light from Christ, burnt in himself with the knowledge and love of God, and afforded light to others by the example of his sanctity, and the fervour of his preaching. For God sent John after a long silence for ages of all the prophets, as it were a heavenly prophet, to be a lamp to illuminate the dark ignorance of the Jews, and to show them the true Light, Christ the Lord, and to bear a torch before Him. So S. Cyril and others. For the Only Begotten One is Light by nature, who, out of Light, that is, the Substance of the Father, hath shone forth. John indeed was a lamp, because he shone with light derived from Him. He shone through oil, i.e., with the grace of the Holy Spirit, which coming into our souls as it were lamps, nourishes and keeps them. Wherefore the type of John was the lamp of oil burning before God in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. For so did John shine before Christ. Therefore was John the Baptist always a burning and shining lamp in the tabernacle of witness, as Cyril says.
Moraliter, S. Bernard (Serm. de S. Joan Bapt.) teaches that holy men and preachers ought first to burn with charity and zeal in themselves before they shine in preaching to others. “John was a burning and shining lamp. It does not say, shining and burning, because the brightness of John sprang from his fervour, not his fervour from his splendour. For there are some who do not shine because they burn, but rather burn in order that they may shine. But these plainly do not burn with the spirit of charity, but with the love of vanity. Listen to Alcuin on this passage: “John was a lamp, enlightened by light from Christ, burning with faith and love, shining in word and action, who was sent before to confound the enemies of Christ, according to the words, ‘I have prepared a lamp for My Christ, I will clothe His enemies with confusion’ ” (Vulg.)
Such a one was S. Athanasius. Hence S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. 21), speaking in his praise, calls him “the eye of the world, the prelate of priests, the leader and master of confessors, a sublime voice, a firm pillar of the faith, next to John the Baptist, a second burning and shining lamp.” He adds, “Athanasius was as an adamant to the persecutors” (by his invincible patience), “a magnet to disputers, to attract them to himself, and to make them be at harmony one with another.” And again, “Let virgins praise him as their betrothed, wives as their director, anchorites as him who wakes them up, monks as their lawgiver, the simple as their guide, those given to speculation as their theologian, the joyous as their moderator, the unfortunate as their consoler, the aged as their staff, youths as their instructor, the poor as a dispenser, the rich as their almoner, the sick as their physician, the whole as the guardian of their health, and, in short, all as he who is made all things to all that he may gain all, or as many as possible.” Such a one was S. Basil, of whom the same Nazianzen says, “The voice of Basil was as thunder, because his life was as lightning.” Because he lightened in his life, therefore did he thunder with his voice.
[2] But ye wished to rejoice for an hour (Vulg.), i.e., for a short time, in his light. When John began to preach with so much sanctity of life and zeal, ye rejoiced because so great a prophet had been sent by God, who, ye trusted, would be your Messiah. But when John began to rebuke your wickedness, and to indicate that I, the poor and lowly One, was the Messiah, ye despised John. Ye would not believe his testimony, because if ye had believed it, ye would have received Me as the Messiah.
[36] Ego autem habeo testimonium majus Joanne. Opera enim quae dedit mihi Pater ut perficiam ea : ipsa opera, quae ego facio, testimonium perhibent de me, quia Pater misit me :
But I have a greater testimony than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to perfect; the works themselves, which I do,[2] give testimony of me, that the Father hath sent me.
But I have greater witness, &c.: i.e., than John’s witness; greater in the sense of surer, more efficacious, that I am Messiah, the Son of God. This greater testimony is My works, My miracles which the Father hath given Me, that by them I may show that He hath sent Me. “For one might find fault with John’s testimony, as if it were given out of favour,” says Euthymius; “but the works being free from all suspicion stop the mouths of the contentious,” says S. Chrysostom. “For the works might convince even the insane.”
[2] The works (the miracles) which I do, &c., such as the recent healing of the paralytic. I speak of My supernatural works, which could not be effected by any natural cause, but are peculiar to God alone. Wherefore they are as it were the seal of God, by which He bears testimony to Me, and seals and confirms My doctrine. So S. Chrysostom and others.
From this it follows that the Jews both could and ought to have known of a certainty that Jesus was the Messiah, or the Christ, and the Son of God, by the miracles which He wrought. 1. Because He did them with this end and object, that by them He might prove that He was Christ and God. 2. Because Jesus did all the miracles which the prophets had foretold would be done by Christ. 3. Because although certain of the prophets and holy men had done some miracles, they had done neither so many nor so great as Jesus had done. Again, the prophets had wrought miracles, not by their own power, but through invoking God; but Christ did them by His own power, and His own authority, as being the Lord. Whence it was easy to discern that He was the Messiah and God.
In two special ways therefore the miracles of Jesus prove that He is God.
First, by the way in which He wrought them, as I have said; because He employed that most mighty power, peculiar to Himself, in working miracles. Then He reserved some miracles to Himself, which by their very nature prove beyond possibility of doubt that He was God. Of this sort was His birth of a Virgin, His knowing the secrets of the heart, and what was in man, and all things. This last was the reason which the apostles gave for believing that He came forth from God. Of like nature was His foretelling all things which were about to happen in His Passion, death, and resurrection, according to the Scriptures. Also that when He willed He laid down His life upon the cross, and resumed it on the third day; that He ascended into heaven; that He sent the Holy Ghost; lastly, that He transmitted that marvellous power of working miracles to His apostles and seventy-two disciples. This also was peculiar to Christ of which I am about to speak,—the force and the power at all times and in all places, ready and at hand, wholly unrestricted, of working such great, such incredible miracles, and so wholly beyond the power of nature; so full and perfect, so salutary, so true, so sure and glorious, so Divine, and so in accordance with the character of the Son of God; among which stands pre-eminent that salutary and instantaneous power of healing every kind of disease in all who in all places and at all times approached Him for the sake of recovering their health. This absolute power, and ever-abiding virtue, belongs to Christ alone Neither Elijah, nor Eliseus, nor even Moses, nor any angel, had it in the time of the Old Testament; for all these only wrought miracles at intervals, as appears from perusing their histories. Moreover, their miracles are summed up in a definite number; the miracles of Christ were continuous and incessant, and could not be numbered. So S. Augustine and others. Add to all this the results of the death of Christ, the conversion of the whole world by twelve fishermen, the fervour of the faithful in the primitive Church, the unconquerable strength of innumerable martyrs, yea, the exultation in their torments of even boys, virgins, and women. All these things proclaim aloud that Christ is to be worshipped, loved, and adored as the Son of God, for He alone could work such Divine works peculiarly belonging to God.
[37] et qui misit me Pater, ipse testimonium perhibuit de me : neque vocem ejus umquam audistis, neque speciem ejus vidistis :
And the Father himself who hath sent me, hath given testimony of me: neither have you heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.
The Father, &c.… hath borne witness, as at My baptism. Again, He hath borne witness concerning Me, through the Scriptures by Moses and the prophets.
Observe, Christ in this place, besides the testimony of John, adduces three other and greater witnesses to show that He is the Messiah: 1. By His miracles (ver. 36); 2. By the Father’s voice at His baptism; 3. By the Scriptures (ver. 39).
And you have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him you believe not.
Ye have not His word abiding (Arabic, made strong) in you, &c. The connection and subsequent argument of these words is obscure, which different writers explain in different ways.
1. You may explain them as a sort of concession, thus: “You, O ye scribes, when I allege the testimony of God My Father concerning Me, make objection that ye have not heard it, that ye have neither seen His face, nor His appearance, as Moses saw, whom ye profess to believe. I grant what you say, but I add that no one, not even Moses, heard God’s own voice, nor saw His appearance, nor His face. They only beheld that immense fire by which God was concealed, and heard a sound formed in the air by an angel, instead of God’s voice. For I alone, who am the Son of God by nature, have heard His real voice, and seen His appearance, or His Divine face, which I see continually. Nevertheless I urge upon you that ye have heard the voice of God giving attestation to Me, when at My baptism the Father publicly declared, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Again, ye have heard the word of God concerning Me in the Holy Scriptures, Moses and the prophets, who bear witness that I am the Messiah. But ye, although ye have heard this word and testimony of God concerning Me, yet have it not abiding in you, because ye receive not in your minds, nor understand, nor believe it, inasmuch as ye do not believe in Me, as sent by God. In this ye gravely err and sin. For if ye have heard the word of an angel in God’s stead speaking with Moses as His servant, and believe him, much more ought ye to believe the Word of God bearing witness to Me that I am His Son, especially since Moses bears witness to Me, and bids you to hearken unto Me, as follows. So Euthymius. This meaning seems clear, plain, and true.
2. However, S. Hilary (lib. 9, de Trin.) thus connects and expounds this whole passage. “This is why ye have not heard His voice, nor seen His appearance, neither doth His word abide in you, because ye do not believe in Me.” As though it were said, “If ye would believe in Me, ye would hear the Father’s voice, and see His appearance. For he that seeth Me seeth the Father also. In like manner, he that heareth Me heareth the Father also, and the word of the Father abideth in him.”
3. SS. Cyril and Chrysostom think that these words were spoken to confound the Jews, who boasted that they had heard and seen God promulging the Decalogue on Sinai. “Ye boast falsely, O ye Jews, that ye have seen and heard God on Sinai, for God is a pure Spirit. Wherefore that voice which ye heard, and that appearance of fire which ye saw on Sinai, was neither the voice nor the true appearance of God, but only a corporeal symbol and figure, shadowing forth to you who are fleshly and ignorant the invisible Godhead.”
4. S. Athanasius (lib. 4, cont. Arian.) by the Word, Greek, λόγος, understands Christ the Son of God, who is the Word of the Father. This he asserts is aptly joined with the appearance and form of God, because He is the character, and the lively image of the Father. And the meaning is, “Ye have not heard the voice of God, nor seen His form; and when there remained for you one only way to do this, by believing in Me, who am the Word of the Father, and the image of His Substance (or Person), whom whosoever seeth sees also the Father, ye despise this way, and will not believe Me. Wherefore ye know not the Father, and are deprived of Divine knowledge.”
5. Toletus: “Ye, O ye Jews, being terrified by the voice of the angel’s trumpet, and by the fire that lightened on Sinai, asked that ye might not hear any more that terrible voice, nor see the dreadful fire, but that God might speak to you by Moses as a mediator. But you keep not the promise by which you bound yourselves. You accepted the stipulation that ye would hear the Prophet of your own nation whom He should send. But His word and compact abide not in you, because what ye promised ye are not willing to fulfil. For, behold, I am He whom He has sent, and ye neither believe Me, nor hear Me, as ye promised.”
The first meaning seems the best and most apposite.
[39] Scrutamini Scripturas, quia vos putatis in ipsis vitam aeternam habere : et illae sunt quae testimonium perhibent de me :
Search the scriptures, for you think in them to have life everlasting; and the same are they that give testimony of me.
Search (scrutamini) the Scriptures, &c. The word for Search in Greek, as well as Latin, may be taken either in the indicative, or the imperative mood. Cyril takes it in the indicative: “Ye, O ye scribes, assiduously turn and search the Scriptures which bear testimony concerning Me, but ye do not care to understand them, because ye will not come unto Me.” But SS. Augustine and Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and others, take it in the imperative: “Search ye the Scriptures, and in them ye will find God the Father bearing witness to Me.”
Moreover, by the word Search, Christ, says S. Chrysostom, pressed upon the Jews not merely the bare reading of the Scriptures, but a thorough and diligent examination of them. He did not say, Read the Scriptures, but Search them. Dig out the hidden treasures which they contain concerning Me and Divine things, just as those who search for veins of gold and silver dig in the earth to find them. Thus the Beræans to whom Paul preached (Acts 17) searched the Scriptures, with a sincere desire to know nothing but the truth. Therefore in the Scriptures they found Christ whom Paul preached to them.
Because in them, i.e., in understanding and believing them, ye think, &c. Because if any one believes and does what the Scriptures bid him, he will attain eternal life. From this it is plain that most of the Jews, and especially the Pharisees, believed in the immortality of the soul, and in an existence after death, in which God would give eternal life to the just, and death eternal to the unjust.
And (Vulg.), i.e., because, for the Hebrew vau, or and, often has a causative force, meaning because, for Christ now gives the reason why He said, Search the Scriptures: because they are they which testify of Me. Many parts do this literally, many more in an allegorical and mystical sense. For “Christ is the end of the Law” (Rom. 10:4). And as S. Peter says, “To Him give all the prophets witness, that all who believe in Him should receive remission of sins through His name.” Let therefore the reader of Holy Scripture, but especially interpreters, doctors, and preachers search the Scriptures, and they will find Christ in them all, either openly revealed, or else veiled in shadows and figures.
[40] et non vultis venire ad me ut vitam habeatis.
And you will not come to me that you may have life.
And (yet), ye will not, &c. “Ye do not wish to cleave to Me, to believe in Me, to receive My doctrine and My law.”
[41] Claritatem ab hominibus non accipio.
I receive glory not from men.
I receive not brightness (Vulg. claritatem), Greek, δόξαν, i.e., glory, from men. There is an anticipation, “Ye, O ye Scribes, suspect, and object that I preach such great things of Myself, and so carefully endeavour to prove My dignity and authority out of the desire of vain glory, that I may catch the breeze of popularity, being desirous of being taken to be the Son of God. I answer that I do not preach these things about Myself in order that I may get glory from men, but for your own sakes, that I may save you. For I am even athirst for your salvation. For I know that no one can be saved, and possess eternal life, but by Me, whom God has appointed the Saviour of the world.” So S. Cyril.
[42] Sed cognovi vos, quia dilectionem Dei non habetis in vobis.
But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you.
But I know you, &c. “I know and penetrate the inmost recesses of your hearts (for I, being God, am the Searcher of hearts), and I see in them nothing of Divine love, but that they are full of ambition, avarice, and pride. And this is the reason why ye will not receive those clear testimonies which I bring forward in My favour. The root from whence your unbelief and obstinacy spring is not ambition of glory in Me, but your own lack of charity. For if ye truly loved God, ye would indeed acknowledge that I have been sent by Him, and am clearly described in the Scriptures.” Thus even now the cause of heresy in many is a vitiated love, because indeed many love the liberty of the flesh which heresy teaches, and do not love God, who forbids it.
Cyril connects this verse with what precedes, thus,—“I have not proclaimed these great things about Myself for the sake of glory, that I may gain human praise, but that ye may learn (as I know) that the love of God is not in you, deprived of which, how can ye come to Me who am the Son of God?”
Differently also Maldonatus and Toletus: “I preach that I am Messiah, and the Son of God, not because I seek the vain glory of men, but because I know that ye have not that love of God which leads to eternal life, so that I may lead you to this love by faith, by which ye may believe in Me.”
[43] Ego veni in nomine Patris mei, et non accipitis me; si alius venerit in nomine suo, illum accipietis.
I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive.
I am come, &c., in My Father’s name, as the Son sent by God the Father, that by His authority I may fulfil those things which He has promised to you concerning Messiah, to His alone praise and glory, so that through Him there may be showered upon you the knowledge of God, grace, salvation, and eternal life. This I have clearly proved to you by the many testimonies which the Father hath given Me. Yet ye do not receive Me, but treat Me as a false prophet. Wherefore by the just judgment of God it shall come to pass, that if another, who is really a false prophet, shall come to you, one who is not sent by God, but who shall come in his own name, i.e., in his own authority, falsely boasting himself to be the Messiah, such an one ye will receive. Another therefore will be that Antichrist whom the Jews will receive, though they rejected Christ. To this apply the words of Paul (2 Thes. 2:10), “Therefore God shall send upon them the working of error, that they may believe a lie, that all may be judged, who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.” So SS. Chrysostom, Cyril, Augustine, and the ancient writers, passim. Again, another may mean any false prophet, pretending to be Christ, and therefore a forerunner of Antichrist, like that Egyptian, shortly after the time of Christ, who led thousands of men to destruction (see Jos. Bell. Jud. lib. 2, c. 12).
[44] Quomodo vos potestis credere, qui gloriam ab invicem accipitis, et gloriam quae a solo Deo est, non quaeritis?
How can you believe, who receive glory one from another: and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek?
How can ye believe, &c. “Ye love human glory, brief and poor: wherefore ye contemn Me, who despise human glory, and teach that it ought to be contemned; and that the Divine and eternal glory ought to be aimed at, which God will begin in the saints on earth, and bring to perfection in Heaven.”
[45] Nolite putare quia ego accusaturus sim vos apud Patrem : est qui accusat vos Moyses, in quo vos speratis.
Think not that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you, Moses, in whom you trust.
Think not, &c. Listen to Cyril, “He declares that there was no need of any other accuser, for that although all others were silent, the law of Moses by itself was sufficient for the condemnation of the Jews who did not believe in Him.” He names Moses because the Jews placed all their faith and trust in him. As they said, “We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence He is” (John 9:28).
[46] Si enim crederetis Moysi, crederetis forsitan et mihi : de me enim ille scripsit.
For if you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of me.
For if ye had believed Moses, perchance (Vulg.) ye would also have believed Me. Perchance; so the Vulgate often translates the Greek, ἄν: but it is here used in the sense of assuredly. It is an expression of confirmation, not of doubt. “Assuredly ye would have believed Me.” Hence some copies omit the word perchance.
For he wrote of Me: both in Leviticus, and the whole Pentateuch; for all his ceremonies and narrations prefigured Me. Also he clearly and expressly wrote of Me (Deut. 18:15, 18), saying, “The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.”
Again Moses wrote of Christ (Gen. 49:10), when he speaks of the time at which Messiah was to come. “The sceptre shall not be taken away from Judah, nor a leader from his thigh, until He that is to be sent shall come: and the same shall be the expectation of the nations” (Vulg.)
For already the sceptre had failed from Jacob, and had been transferred to Herod. Therefore it was the time of Messiah’s Advent.
[47] Si autem illius litteris non creditis, quomodo verbis meis credetis?
But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam
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